Hi BillyBean and welcome to the forum.

For someone with lots of equity in their home, and no obvious way to release it, a trust deed or bankruptcy may put the home in jeopardy.

For that reason a lot of people in that situation look to other measures, especially the debt arrangement scheme.

In bankruptcy you will have to contribute towards your debts (if you can afford to) for three years not one. Discharge from bankruptcy may be after a year, but the payments continue for two further years.

Are you sure that there is this much equity?

Are you the sole owner of the home?

I am Not an expert![:I]

I think the equity is the decider. And affordability of the fees for administration of any choice you go with.

Key issue is value-what are you basing £30k on.?
Open Market value won't apply as costs of managing, marketing and selling will be taken account of. As well as that, the figure used will need to be a 'forced sale value' or 'asset value' which assumes a quick sale.

Whatever the figure ends up at, if it is realistic for you to have a *3rd party - friend/partner/family member pay that or make arrangements to pay it in installments, you may not need to sell at all. You can't pay it as any funds you have need to go towards fees or returning some of the borrowed amountas to the lenders.

You would be advised in either bankruptcy or trust deed to have that figure (equity) agreed in writing at the outset so you don't have the worry of a rise in property values taking the option away from you. Then you would pay either a nominal fee re the admin. or a fixed sum (depending on the approach taken by your trustee) to document that the amount due is stated as...... and will be paid for by...... and is not subject to revaluation at a later stage. Only if you and the 3rd party* default on that arrangement would the house being sold come up again.[:(]

That's my summary of months of asking similar questions and I hope the experts will comment on your specific question as well as any holes in my comments above.

I think some people are happy to delay the selling of their family home for loads of good reasons including their children's schooling, fears over losing control over areas if housed by local authority, and the optimistic view that perhaps something will change meantime to allow the money to be paid over to avoid selling in the end. That could be an unexpected gain/win/bonus/gift or a change in lending climate to release funds via remortgage. Even if that doesn't materialise, the family have not been uprooted sooner than necessary.[:D]

As I understand it, Bankruptcy and PTD are very similar in that although the duration of a bankruptcy is seen as 12 months , it is not always and the period during which payments are made will be likely to be 3 years or more as the trustee fees still have to be paid after the individual is discharged. As in PTD, an Income/Expense calculation will be made to determine monthly payments which can be made from the household budget. In pTD, that figure needs to cover fees and a specific minimum towards the debts outstanding, in Bankruptcy, the amount will be similar but without the obligation to cover a % based amount of the debt outstanding.

Historically the equity would be easy to release with a remortgage but thats clearly not the case nowadays. I think anyone with significant equity should tread carefully around trust deeds,unless you have a 3rd party who can buy out your trustee's interest in the property(in effect introduce into your trust deed a sum to cover the value of the equity).

Paul

The same is true for bankruptcy, in terms of equity. Find out what that actually is though before you can really decide. Not from an estate agent, although free it is worthless in this scenario.
You don't say what your total debt is, this will decide if you can repay it in total over a longer period using the DAS.

As Pamjo says, a lot depends upon how much your debt adds up to. Do you mind sharing this with us Billybean? Also whether the property is jointly owned with someone else.