I may live to regret saying this but everything has been quiet so far.  I signed and returned my IPA agreement form and I haven’t heard anything back yet.  The first payment is due on 4th June 2007, so if I don’t hear from the OR in the next couple of weeks I’ll give her a call as I want to make sure this all goes smoothly!

That’s all the news I have (ie nothing!) at the moment, but on a lighter note, can I just say good luck to Man Utd against Milan tomorrow night!!!

I received a letter from the OR today confirming how much I will be paying in my IPA.  The bad news is it’s more than I was told on the phone, but the good news is it’s less than half what I was paying in my IVA, and I am confident I can live off it.  My payments will start on 4th June for 36 months.

I will be put on a NT tax code for the year of my bankruptcy.  This means I will pay no tax, but sadly I can’t keep the extra!  The OR has stated that I will pay the extra £278.00 into my IPA, and this will commence when the Inland Revenue apply the code and will continue for the rest of the tax year.

My amended allowances are as follows:

Rent:  £200.00
Housekeeping:  £350.00
Electricity:  £25.00
Water:  £8.00
Mobile:  £35.00
Travel:  £100.00
Clothing:  £40.00
Council Tax:  £50.00
TV Licence:  £6.00
Opticians:  £10.00
Dentist:  £10.00
Prescriptions:  £10.00
Holidays:  £20.00
Car Expenses:  £100.00
Hairdressing:  £10.00

If I disagree with this I have to put it in writing to the OR, but to be honest I’m not too unhappy with it.  The main thing is I can keep my car.  I have to return the signed form within 14 days and I will then be advised how I make the payments.Â

Here is what the OR allowed me in my income and expenditure.  I have no children and live in a one bedroom flat with my partner:

Rent / Mortgage - £200.00 (Mortgage is solely in my partner’s name and this is less than half)
Electricity - £25.00 (This is half of the monthly bill and we have no gas)
Mobile phone - £35.00 (Contract with Vodafone)
TV Licence - £6.00 (Approximately half)
Council Tax - £50.00 (This is just under half)
Food - £350.00 (For 2 people - I pay for all the food)
Clothing - £40.00
Hairdressing - £10.00
Car Insurance - £30.00
Petrol - £100.00
Car Maintenance - £50.00
Breakdown Cover - £10.00
Car Tax - £10.00 (I’ve got a Vauxhall Corsa so quite cheap)
Incidentals - £50.00
Holidays, Christmas, Birthdays etc - £50.00
Contact Lenses - £10.00
Medical - £25.00

Yesterday was my day of destiny - I had my telephone interview with the OR at 3pm.  I was a bag of nerves before hand and I thought I was going to be sick, but to be honest it was nowhere near as bad as I was expecting.  The phone rang shortly after 3pm and as I spoke I realised that my voice was now a nervous squeak, but the lady conducting the interview was fine with me.  She started off going through the legal bits and pieces and the reason for the interview, and I then had to tell her why I was in debt.  I couldn’t remember some dates so I told her that and she was fine. 

We soon established that I have no assets (embarrassing really with £65k of debt) apart from my car which is exempt as I need it for work.  They are not interested in my laptop.  As I have surplus income I am eligible for an IPA (which I will start paying into in approximately 8 weeks) and I will be paying £115 per month, which is around 50% of my surplus income.  I will receive a letter confirming that my car is exempt, and another one confirming the IPA. 

If the OR needs to speak to me again she will contact me either by letter or phone, and if there are any irregulaties I may need to attend for a face to face interview, but hopefully everything will be straightforward and that will be it.  Fingers crossed!

I will post a list of my allowances later on so people have an idea of what is allowed.

Good luck to everyone else going through this.

Well, it arrived today, and to be honest wasn’t as bad as I expected.  It contained: 

a letter advising the date of the interview and who will be calling,
a checklist letting you know what to send back, a form that needs to be signed and witnessed that gives you information about the Insolvency Act 1986,
a letter authorising the OR to have access to your tax details,
an ethnicity form
a copy of the Insolvency Service charter
information leaflets

You have to send the following information:

12 months bank statements
3 months wage slips
12 months credit card statements
Loan or HP agreements
Any chequebooks or cards still held

I have managed to find most of the information, although most of my credit card statements have been shredded and I am one bank statement missing.  Apparently the OR can get this information quite easily though.  All the information has to be with them by Monday 9th April, which is Easter Monday, so there was a bit of a mad rush tonight so that I can get it back to them by Thursday!

Now that I have done this the next stage is the meeting with the OR.  I will be glad to get that over and done with - then perhaps this headache will go!

I’ll post again when there are any more developments!

Well I’ve spoken to the Official Receiver’s Office!  The lady that I am going to be dealing with rang me on Friday afternoon to let me know that I have got my telephone interview on Tuesday 10th April at 3pm, and it is scheduled to last half an hour.  She also wanted some bank sort codes.  I had heard about interviews lasting for three or four hours so I am quite pleased really!  I am also pleased that it’s a telephone interview as I didn’t fancy getting to Croydon - not a nice journey.

While I was talking to her, I asked about my car.  It’s my one and only asset, and I have been worrying about it as it would make life quite difficult if I couldn’t keep a car of some description.  She asked do I need it for work (yes), how far from work do I live (6-7 miles) and can I get the bus (yes but I wouldn’t get to work on time).  She then told me that she would let me know on Monday if I could keep it.  I was not looking forward to thinking about that all weekend!

I put the phone down, and that was it, I couldn’t stop crying.  Everything seemed to hit me, and I was really sobbing.  I phoned Dave, and kept telling him I was going to be a prisoner in the flat (a bit of an exaggeration!) and that I would be dependent on him (he sounded scared at this point!).  Eventually I pulled myself together and asked him to get me the sort codes the OR needed, and decided to phone her back and get that bit over and done with.  Low and behold, she told me that my car was exempt.  I had a blonde moment at that point (as I often do!) and couldn’t work out what that meant (I thought I was exempt from having a car - I put it down to stress, not my stupidity!) so she patiently explained that not only can I keep a car, but I can keep the one I’ve got!  I was so pleased, it really made my weekend.  It sounds pathetic really, it’s only a car after all, but it meant I can stay at my job (they’re not so well paid nearer home) and try and keep some normality in my life.

I’m now waiting for my bankruptcy pack to arrive - I’ll post again when I’ve got it, as I’m sure you’re all dying to know what’s in it!!!!!

Well, quite a lot has happened since I last posted.  My IVA has failed and I am now bankrupt.  I’ll try and recount everything as best I can! 

I spoke to my case manager at Accuma and told her that I was really struggling to make the payments and I sent in a amended income and expenditure form.  After going through my expenses with a fine tooth comb I worked out I would need another £100 to manage for the next five years.  After sending it in, I got a phone call from my IP who was very helpful and honest with me - he advised me there wasn’t a lot he could do as my creditors wouldn’t consider any variations within the first 24 months, and my payments could not fall below the agreed 27p in the pound.  This only left one realistic option - bankruptcy.

To be honest, I had already resigned myself to the fact that I would end up bankrupt but when it was actually confirmed that it was going to be my course of action it was scary!  I have no assets apart from my car, so it should be fairly straightforward - fingers crossed!

Anyway, I went to court yesterday, and I am now ‘a bankrupt’.  I was originally going to do it in May, but decided that sooner rather than later was better!  My partner was roped in for moral support, and yesterday morning we set off for my local county court.  Unfortunately they don’t give appointments, it’s done on a first come first served basis and they can only see 4 people per day.  After an arguement in the car on the way there (we got lost and I’m no good at map reading at the best of times!) we arrived an hour early so had to wait in the car until the doors opened.  There was only me and another man, who was obviously more determined to bee seen than I was as he barged past me!  He was bigger than me, and I was feeling a little subdued, so for once I kept quiet!

We were eventually called through to the office, where a very nice lady went through my petition and SOA, and then told me that as I only had 2 copies it would cost me £7 for another copy!  No way was I going home without being seen, so I handed over my £475 fees plus another £7 for the copying - the car park cost over £6 as well, so it was an expensive day all round!

After handing over the money, we then had to wait to be called to see the judge - I was shaking by the time I went in!  He was a very nice man and asked me did I understand the seriousness of what I was doing - at that point his mobile phone rang!  After switching that off he told me about income payment orders and bankruptcy restriction orders, signed the petition and sent me on my way.  So from 10.15am yesterday I was bankrupt!

I was then given a letter from the OR’s office advising me that unless I had a business, any hazardous assets(!) or was planning to move house I could wait for them to contact me in about 7 days time, but if I haven’t heard from them by then to give them a call.  I actually spoke to them this morning as I was concerned about my bank account - I was told by Lloyds TSB that I could keep the account but I wanted to check with the OR.  They were happy for me to keep the account as well, but did say that Lloyds head office might over rule the branch.  To be on the safe side I rang the Co-op to open a basic Cash Minder account.  It looks as though that has been approved, but if I haven’t heard anything by Wednesday call them.  I was also told that I can keep my mobile phone contract as I don’t owe Vodafone any money, but I will obviously have to wait and see about my car.  I am a bit worried that they won’t let me keep a car of any sort, but I’ll have to cross that bridge when I come to it.  I do need it to get too and from work, and my mum is elderly and on her own, so I hope they’ll take that into account.

So far, everyone I have dealt with has been so nice.  No one has made me feel bad, or that I have done something wrong.  When I left court yesterday I had a feeling of euphoria that I had actually done something about my situation.  By yesterday afternoon that feeling had gone and I felt like a failure, and that I have let everyone down.  By yesterday evening I felt sick, had a thumping headache and an upset stomach!  Today I feel positive, and on the road to a better future.

I just want to say to anyone who is going down the BR route, please don’t feel a failure.  The people you deal with are kind and sympathetic.  Yes, you will go through a rollercoaster of emotion, but you will be ok in the end.

I will post again when I have more news about the OR.

I used to think that I would always be able to get credit, and therefore it didn’t matter that I hardly had any cash.  I was always getting letters from the banks and credit card companies offering me another interest free period, and stupidly I used to take it every time, but not cut up the other cards.

My main problems started when I had a car accident on New Year’s Day 2003 and wrote my car off.  I lost quite a lot of money compared to what I had paid for it and I didn’t have a courtesy car so had to pay to hire one so I could get to work.  The claim took a long time to go through, and eventually I bought a new car with the insurance money.  A few months down the line I realised this had some serious problems, so I ended up replacing it as it was too expensive to repair, and, surprise surprise the problems weren’t covered by the warranty! 

During this time, I took out a new consolidation loan, which helped for a while until a year later my latest car packed up.  I topped up the consolidation loan and got a newer, much more economical car and paid off some of my credit cards.  I knew I was getting out of my depth by this point, but didn’t know what else to do, so 6 months later I applied for, and was approved for, a second loan. 

The real turning point came when one of my 0% credit cards was up to it’s limit just as the interest free period ran out and they wrote and informed me that they would put the interest rate up to 27.9%.  I knew there was no way I could afford this, so I finally admitted to my partner was a mess I was in.  I googled ‘debt solutions’ and contacted a few companies, but Thomas Charles were the only ones I felt comfortable with.  I sent all my paperwork off, which was forwarded to Accuma and my creditors meeting was called for 24th October 2006.

My IVA was accepted first time, but with hindsight I wish it hadn’t even been put forward.  I am struggling to make ends meet, and if my partner didn’t help me financially and my mum didn’t buy us food I wouldn’t be able to make the payments.  Due to the way the figures were presented I have £100 less per month than they said I would have and I have realised I can’t live like this.  The only person getting a good deal out of this is my IP!!!

I have left a message for Myvesta to contact me as I want impartial advice, which I don’t think I will get from my IP.  In the meantime I have started filling out the bankruptcy forms online - it’s a bit daunting, but I feel better than I have done in ages.  For the meantime I am back in control.  I know that will change when the OR gets hold of me, but hey ho, that’s life!!!

I really feel that bankruptcy should have been put forward to me as an option at the very beginning, which is why I have started this blog, so that people can see what happens.  OK, I have no assets apart from my car so I don’t stand to lose my home, but hopefully I can help someone!

Welcome to the Blog of Skippy13. I started an IVA last October but that has failed and I am now bankrupt.  I hope my experiences can help someone else in the same situation: http://www.iva.co.uk/forum/pop_profile.asp?mode=display&id=313