Kids off to school. Wife and I off to CAB for our appointment. Feel nervous. No idea who we're going to see. Will they judge us? Will we leave here any the wiser?
We were taken to a small room where a friendly woman went through all of our household situation, taking into account income, benefits and expenditure. The first bit of advice is to maximise your income and minimise your expenditure. She was content that we were receiving housing benefit, tax credits, council tax reduction, free school meals, child benefit and to our surprise after scrutinising every item on our expenditure list she said, we were actually low on many figures and could increase some. An hour later we left the CAB realising we could not apply for a Debt Relief Order (DRO) as we owed more than £15k. Also a point to note, the woman at the CAB thought that when totalling the amount for a DRO they will take Student Loans into account as part of this figure. She also said the DRO limit may increase in October 2015 to £20k per person but nothing has been confirmed as yet. We had a couple of other options. We have the option to organise a Temporary Repayment Plan and this is something that Citizens Advice can direct you to an organisation who deals with your creditors and arranges this for FREE. We couldn't go for this option as we could not see our current financial circumstances changing short or long term.
The realisation was that I would have to go bankrupt. The advice for this option was to download the forms from the government website, https://www.gov.uk/bankruptcy/declare-bankruptcy Download and fill in form 6.27 - ‘Debtor’s bankruptcy petition’ and form 6.28 - ‘Statement of affairs’. There is guidance at the side of form 6.27 and a whole booklet relevant to filling in 6.28. It says the court usually needs 2 copies.
Another point to note is that you cannot go into more debt to go bankrupt...hence why some people cannot afford to go bankrupt. CRAZY. The Official Receiver's fee is £525 and the court fees are £180. This is payable in cash, postal order, bank or solicitor's cheque payable to Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service.
So we decided to do BANKRUPTCY. Wow, the word, the status, is so so scary. The Citizens Advice Bureau advises that only I have to petition for bankruptcy as all the unsecured debt is in my name. My wife only has £150 debt in her name. So the woman at the Citizens Advice Bureau says we have to fill in two copies of the forms and then go along to the court any time and get in the long queue. She said there is always a long queue.
We visited an amazing friend of ours to ask the big question. Would she mind "paying" for my bankruptcy. We would need £705 cash if possible. Yes, we could go ahead and start my petition forms. This was really happening. Never ever thought I'd be in this position. Never thought things would get this bad.
We were taken to a small room where a friendly woman went through all of our household situation, taking into account income, benefits and expenditure. The first bit of advice is to maximise your income and minimise your expenditure. She was content that we were receiving housing benefit, tax credits, council tax reduction, free school meals, child benefit and to our surprise after scrutinising every item on our expenditure list she said, we were actually low on many figures and could increase some. An hour later we left the CAB realising we could not apply for a Debt Relief Order (DRO) as we owed more than £15k. Also a point to note, the woman at the CAB thought that when totalling the amount for a DRO they will take Student Loans into account as part of this figure. She also said the DRO limit may increase in October 2015 to £20k per person but nothing has been confirmed as yet. We had a couple of other options. We have the option to organise a Temporary Repayment Plan and this is something that Citizens Advice can direct you to an organisation who deals with your creditors and arranges this for FREE. We couldn't go for this option as we could not see our current financial circumstances changing short or long term.
The realisation was that I would have to go bankrupt. The advice for this option was to download the forms from the government website, https://www.gov.uk/bankruptcy/declare-bankruptcy Download and fill in form 6.27 - ‘Debtor’s bankruptcy petition’ and form 6.28 - ‘Statement of affairs’. There is guidance at the side of form 6.27 and a whole booklet relevant to filling in 6.28. It says the court usually needs 2 copies.
Another point to note is that you cannot go into more debt to go bankrupt...hence why some people cannot afford to go bankrupt. CRAZY. The Official Receiver's fee is £525 and the court fees are £180. This is payable in cash, postal order, bank or solicitor's cheque payable to Her Majesty's Courts and Tribunals Service.
So we decided to do BANKRUPTCY. Wow, the word, the status, is so so scary. The Citizens Advice Bureau advises that only I have to petition for bankruptcy as all the unsecured debt is in my name. My wife only has £150 debt in her name. So the woman at the Citizens Advice Bureau says we have to fill in two copies of the forms and then go along to the court any time and get in the long queue. She said there is always a long queue.
We visited an amazing friend of ours to ask the big question. Would she mind "paying" for my bankruptcy. We would need £705 cash if possible. Yes, we could go ahead and start my petition forms. This was really happening. Never ever thought I'd be in this position. Never thought things would get this bad.