Firstly, slapped wrists for taking a month to write this blog!  How quick does time fly?  In a weeks time we will have been bankrupt 2 months already!  I cannot believe we are already into April, Easter has long gone, and the summer is fast approaching!

Turning the clock back a month… first came the visit to the Official Receiver.  She was quite pleasant, although we were there a long time!  Wen and I had a quick chat to start with to sign some forms, and categorise the paperwork we were handing over.  Wen had her interview first, and basically the OR asked questions about our business, how it was funded, her previous bankruptcy, and circumstances around why we had needed to declare bankruptcy this time.

My turn then, again similar questions, we went through my assetts (house/car), and then through my personal debts, answering why i’d taken the debt on and what it had been used for.  It was quite upsetting having to trawl back through our personal demise into bankruptcy, and seeing some stupid judgements that we’d made along the road too - good old hindsight working wonders again… i’m just a bit worried it may lead to a BRU of some description (not the end of the world granted), as our personal debt, house and car were all in my name due to Wen’s previous bankruptcy, so I felt like I was the one being judged, even though our financial decisions were joint, the legal responsibility of the decisions were down to me.  It was a bit of an ordeal, and I was in tears at one point.  Obviously the OR has a job to do and discover and establish the events surrounding the bankruptcy, and there were some pretty unavoidable events surrounding our bankruptcy, so i’m hoping the OR takes it all into consideration before making any further decision.  The OR was not being horrible, but I suppose having to relive everything of the past 2 years or so was very hard indeed.

The OR requested some further information with regards to our business accounts, and also requested any other historical credit card statements for the past 6-12months if available, and I sent back what I could find.

The OR again has contacted me to see if any further information with regards to our balance sheet was available, as there was no money in our estate to have our accounts done and that creditors wouldn’t vote to pay for it either.  Hopefully what I can provide will be enough to satisfy her queries.

We are not subject to an IPA yet, as our income is not sufficient enough, and at one stage (prior to my interview), the OR said we may have an early discharge, but if so our I/E would need to be reviewed before discharge.

Aside from the visit, we have sent the keys back to the mortgage company for our property, Peugeot Financial Services are messing around sending threatening letters about the car on HP finance, even though we’re not using it anymore and waiting for them to have it back!  Better news came at the end of the month, as I went for what felt like the 15th job interview and have now secured a new job, starting at the end of April!  I have been temporary working so far since we left our business last year, so to finally get a long-term career back on track, with a decent salary and very good overtime should I want it available too, things finally look like we have turned the corner… (for now anyway!)  Just got to have a medical now for the job, (although Arsenal have given me enough heart-attacks and stress to make me think I might fail it ! LOL).  Lesson learnt this month is that if you stay positive, the good will eventually come… also a few prayers seemed to have helped too!!

Now come on Arsenal, finish Liverpool off on Tuesday and silence that Kop!

Mr. Wen