Hi JV1 and welcome.

Your partner has no responsibility for your debts, but her income is relevant in terms of sharing out household bills. This is relevant to working out how much you can fairly be expected to pay into a trust deed each month.

Your trustee will want to ensure that your contribution is based upon an equitable split of the household bills. For example, it would be unfair on your creditors if you paid all of the mortgage or rent for your shared home - in such an instance your partner would effectively be getting a free ride at the expense of your creditors.

There's a number of different ways to work through all of this however, and a different adviser might take a different view to the one that you've already obtained.

Can I please ask, is your partner's income of £2500 significantly higher or lower than your own?

I earn £1100pm
Our household bills are roughy; £1800pm
We have always split bills 50/50

OK - so it sounds like the adviser you've spoken with might be apportioning your bills in a different way to 50:50.

Some might look to split them pro rata according to earnings, so your partner might be deemed to assume around 2/3 of the total and you 1/3. The net effect of this would be that your disposable income is much higher on paper than it is in reality with you splitting the bills in half.

It would be interesting to get a view from Kevin, David or Mark on this subject. There have been some relevant rule changes recently that mean there could be more than one way apportion the bills between you. Essentially a partner's income shouldn't really be taken into account, but shared bills still need to be split up by some means or other.

Hopefully one of them will visit the forum soon and comment further.

Hi JV1,

Are you able to demonstrate via bank statements what your proportion of the bills you currently pay?

It's certianly worth seeking a second opinion regarding the possibility of a Trust Deed and what level of payment you could be asked to pay per month. It could be the case that after a thorough review of your circumstances and budget a Trust Deed is possible.

Hi JV1,

I've just looked at the guidance to refresh my memory as its a little late and been a long day in relation to budgeting which is called the Common Financial Tool. This can be found on the Accountant In Bsnkruptcy website and within it it advises that a person shouldn't be penalised for a partner having a higher income and a fair and reasonable approach should be used when calculating a payment per month.

Like I said, a second opinion might mean a TD is possible.

Do you own any assets such as own your house or have an expensive car?

David
Thank you very much for the feedback David
You mentioned information on the AIB website person shouldn't be penalised for a partner having a higher income and a fair and reasonable approach should be used when calculating a payment per month.
Can you point me to this section
I ma really looking for advice from another IP but would like to do some more research given my previous bad experience

Hi JV1,

If you go onto the Accountant in Bankruptcy website and use the search function at the top right and search for "Common Financial Statement" you should find this and the Common Financial Statement Guidance which is what I am referring to.

The publication date of this was the 19th of March 2015.

If you struggle to find it I'll be happy to email you a copy of the document. You will find the section under section 2 Household Composition.

Have a read over this and let me know if you have any further questions.

Hi JV1.

I think that you're taking a very sensible approach to this. For a long time we've advised people here that it's better to make a good decision than to make a quick decision.

A lot of the rules and guidance that insolvency practitioners are subject to is itself subject to a degree of interpretation. Different trustees and firms therefore sometimes view the same situation in slightly different ways. I think you'll understand, after reading the section that David has highlighted, how firms might interpret your situation in slightly different ways.

Is it the case that you can evidence on bank statements the proportion of your household bills that you have been paying personally?

I've always thought it was a bit unfair to apportion a higher proportion of the household bills to one partner than the other. The effect is always that one partner loses out on the arrangement.

The guidance that David refers to does say that there is room for looking at these things differently depending upon the specific case, and as long as a clear and justifiable rationale is used then this should be acceptable. It even mentions splitting the housing/utility costs 50/50 as being reasonable in some circumstances.

Definitely worth having a chat with another firm for a second opinion, I'd say.