Hello girl10.

As your house appears to be in significant negative equity there doesn't appear to be any benefit to your creditors if you were to lose it as part of a bnakruptcy.

If you need the car to attend work (and other purposes) it would appear very likely that you'd be able to keep that as well (as it's on HP and the monthly payment isn't excessive).

If you apply for your own bankruptcy the fee is £100. You may then be asked to make a contribution towards the debts for three years if it's worked out that you can afford to do so.

Whether a trust deed is available to you, your husband, or both of you seems likely to come down to how much you could each realistically afford to pay towards the debts each month.

If you can give us an indication on this we may be able to provide some further information.

It might also be worth working through your income/expenditure numbers with a debt or trust deed adviser to make sure that they're consistent with the criteria used for trust deeds, bankruptcy and other debt solutions.

My Mortgage is £573 a month (£112) of this is the loan paymemt
Electricity £135
Car Payment £151.50
Council Tax £116
Insurance Home and Car and Life £100
Lock up for car rent £26
Tv £12
child care £200
Sky Tv phone and internt £72
Mobile phone both £40
Petrol £150
Food Shop £500

Hello girl10.

Could you give us some information on your income sources as well please?

I get paid £13,000 a year and my husband gets £19,000 plus my child benefit of £132 a month, my take home pay is £780 every 4 weeks, my husband has spoken with his work and Bankruptcy wouldnt be an option for him so it would have to be a trust deed for him. thank you

Thanks girl10.

How much does your husband take home?

Do you receive any tax credits?

he takes home around £1180, no they have stopped as i was over paid but i used to get £32

Hi girl10

You'll need to be carefull as the normal step after the expiry of the period is to look at wage arrestment. Looking at the debt level, I think you need to take advice asap. Trust Deed would certainly be an option or possibly sequestration (bankruptcy)

Mark

Thanks yeah i had read a few other topics and noticed this would happen, i have taken friday off and im planing on hopefully see someone on friday about what to do.

Hi girl10.

Using your figures...

Your calendar month household income is: £2157.

Your expenses are: £1869.

That would appear to leave a joint surplus of £288.

However I think that there are some items of expenditure that haven't been allowed for. For example:

Clothing
Car tax
Car maintenance and repairs
Home repairs
Haircuts

Any thoughts on what you might be spending in these areas? For the occasional expenditure (home and car repairs) it's usual to set a monthly allowance to cover the irregular expenses that are likely to crop up at some point over the three years of a trust deed. It's the same with with clothing; the idea is to create a monthly allowance to cover the things you'll need to buy (albeit not every month).

Travel card £60 a month for my husband mybe £100 for the other things on the list which would leave £128 a month left, do you think my husband could enter into a trust deed with this amout left?

Very unlikely I'm afraid - sequestration may be the only option for both of you.

However, on the subject of tax credits - the overpayment should be included in any trust deed or bankruptcy, so you should qualify for payments again. Presumably it was £32 weekly, rather than monthly?

its only £32 a month, i spoke to a company last night and they told me i would have to pay about £50 a month to bankruptcy and my husband would have to pay a lot more for a trust deed, and we would have to both pay the £500 to keep our property out it it, can you enter into a trust deed if you work for a company that is FSA Regulated? as ive been told you cant go bankrupt if you work for a company that is FSA regulated and im really worried.

I have been doing some figures and if my husband enters into a trust deed that would take all our income away so would i still have to make payments to?

Hi girl10.

There's no rule saying you cannot do a trust deed or go bankrupt if you work for an FSA regulated business. What is relevant though is whether there is anything in your husbands contract of employment about bankruptcy, insolvency or trust deeds. Most people don't have anything like this, but they're more prevalent in the financial services sector than in other types of employment.

The £50 payment you have been "quoted" appears designed to cover the fees of a company managing the bankruptcy. If you have no disposable income there isn't a need to do anything other than pay the £100 bankruptcy fee directly.

As you're both earning it seems unfair on your creditors if all of your joint disposable income were to go to your husbands creditors. I'm not sure whether that's really a viable position.

If you look back over your expenditure list do you think there is anything that you could cut back upon and still be sure that you'd be able to manage OK?