Hi again
Last time I wrote I said we were going to talk to my parents about borrowing money and I had put my car up for sale, well it sold and my parents have agreed to lend us the money to buy back my share of the equity in the house with the agreement that once my bankruptcy is over I start to pay the money back.
My car sold for £2400, a little less than I wanted but enough to pay for a cheap car, my bankruptcy costs and the bankruptcy assistance service from Beat My Debt with about £400 left over. I managed to get a Vauxhall for £995 that is in pretty good condition so all in all it was a good idea to sell the car now.
James has suggested that I keep back the rest of the money so that I can give this to the official Receiver however as things are pretty tight he also said that if some of the money was spent on living expenses it would normally not cause a huge problem. I am going to save what I can as I don’t want to get on the wrong side of the official receiver before I have started!
Given the money I got from the car I decided to use the Bankruptcy assistance service with James. I am very comfortable with this as he has given very good advice so far and I also read some of the things that other people have said about the service which were very positive. The first stage is completing the 2 bankruptcy forms. James called me and we went through each question. It takes about 3 hours and I have to say I really do not know what it would have been like if I was at home trying to fill them out myself. Some questions were fairly straight forward but some I would have got confused on and completing my living expenses form with James was enlightening. There were a few things that I did not know could be included in living expenses such as there is a budget for leisure.
Once we completed the income and expenses part of the forms James said he felt that I have disposable income of around £100 a month. Given this he said that worst case the Official receiver might ask me to make this payment however it would really depend on the person I get. James said that often they change the numbers a little so I may not have to make any payments at all.
I honestly thought that going bankrupt would mean barely having a life until it was over but based on what James has said it looks like we are actually going to be better off financially than we have been for a very long time. At the end of the day if I only have to pay £100 a month and have mo other debts to pay except my mortgage I will be more than happy. Fingers crossed :)
One thing that James has talked through with me in detail is what happens to my Banka account. From what I have been reading I knew my bank account would be frozen and I will need to open a new account before I go Bankrupt. James said that there are two banks in particular that will keep an account open for you, these are Barclays and the Co Op. I am with Barclays now and owe them money through an overdraft so they will be included in my bankruptcy. James said that if I continued to use Barclays once bankrupt they may try to use something called the offset rule which means they could take all my salary from my account to help pay towards the debt I owe them! So I have applied to the Co-op to open their Cash Minder account. As it turns out this will give me all the facilities I need including a debit card and internet banking, just no overdraft. You apply by post so I am just waiting for the details to come through.
James emailed me my completed forms after we went through them on the phone. There were a few changes that I needed which James did for me. He has now e-mailed the completed forms back to me so I can print them out.
When I was having my telephone meeting with James he also asked that I phone my local court and book an appointment. I have done this and they said that there was no need to so once my account is open I will be ready to go.
I will let you know how it goes next time. Until then.
Rambling on.
