Bankrupt!
Thursday 14th February - Day 1
We arrived at the court at 10am, clutching our fee and papers. We had to wait for about 10 minutes, and then the court clerk came out and took us into a private room, where he explained the process of the day.
He checked our papers were all in order, checked our fee, and asked us to swear on the bible and he signed and stamped our forms. We were led outside, while he prepared the bankruptcy papers, and then we were given a folder to take up to the court usher. The usher took our papers and told us to have a seat while she showed them to a judge, and would call us if the judge wanted to speak to us. Within 5 minutes the clerk had returned with the papers signed and we had duly been made bankrupt at 11:11am! I was quite surprised we had not even needed to see the judge!
Back downstairs to the admin office, the clerk took the papers and went off to produce the actual bankruptcy order which was then faxed through to the Official Receivers office. We were then taken back to the ‘private room’, where we had to wait about 2 minutes for the Official Receiver to ring.
The OR office then took some details from both of us, confirming our names/dob’s/addresses. I was asked the total amount of our debts, whether we had a property, and other assetts such as business stock. I was also asked whether or not there were any assetts that needed to be dealt with by the OR office within the next 7 days - I mentioned I had a car on HP, but the OR said they would wait until our interview to discuss this.
We have a Cashminder account with Co-operative bank, and a balance of £0.55, and I asked whether we could keep it (as my salary is paid in every friday), and the OR asked whether the Co-op Group were a creditor, and as they weren’t the OR said he would write to the Co-op the same day to tell them that he had no interest in the account and his recommendation is to allow the account to continue to be operated, providing the bank were happy with this (more about this in the “Co-op” post). He also said that if the account was frozen at a later date and money was caught up in the account to contact the OR and they would contact the bank and get it released for us.
The OR asked for details of any creditors in the process of taking legal action that needed notifying asap of our bankruptcy, and he said he would write to them immediately to let them know to halt legal action.
We were also told that if we received any letters notifying us that any of our debts had been sold on to someone else, that we let the OR office know immediately so they could be notified of the bankruptcy straight away. We were also told to write to our creditors straight away to let them know of our bankruptcy, which should halt the letters/demands.
The OR explained that when they had received our statement of affairs, that a member of the OR team would assess them and decide whether a 1 hour telephone interview or a 2 hour face-to-face interview would be needed. He also said that they would send our some papers to read through, HMRC forms to sign, and send back a copy of our rental tenancy agreement and the last correspondance from each of our creditors. We were finally given the contact details for the OR office and that they would ring early next week to confirm a time and date for telephone or face-to-face interview with the OR. We were given the phone number for the OR office to ask any questions any time.
That was that. We returned the BR papers to the clerk and we were free to go - all done.
I have to say everyone we encountered at the court and the OR office were very respectful and explained everything in full. Next stage is waiting for the paperwork from the OR office and for them to ring about our interview.
Mr. Wen
