Hi Peter123,

It would be normal to assess the household's income and expenditure. That way your contribution level can be more fairly assessed (for you and for your creditors) than by looking at your income and spending only.

I'm not sure that you could be forced to send in your wife's documents because it's up to her whether she chooses to share them or not. Having said that, providing those documents could again help to ensure that your contribution level is assessed fairly.

Did you provide your wife's documents at the start?

Thank you for getting back to me.
Yes, i provided them with my wifes bank statement at the start of the process.
My wife earns more now then when i started this process so i dont know if this will have an impact on my payments.
Nothing has changed in my circumstances and i dont benefit from my wifes extra income so not sure what the outcome would be?
I also don't think she will be happy providing bank statement's and wage slips every 6 months.

Hi Peter123.

I guess it's possible that your wife might be expected (in theory at least) to cover a bit more of the household expenditure if her income has increased and yours has not. The effect of this might be that you could afford to pay more to your creditors.

Having said that, it's her money and she should of course benefit from an increase in her income.

You can only really provide the information that you're required to deliver and any extra information that you think is relevant.

Morning Peter

Your wife has the right not to provide the information however this can be detrimental in assessing your level of disposable income.

Without the info, your Trustee will assess your household as 1 adult and will half all essential expenditure. If you have kids, household benefits would also be halved as well as allowances as there is the expectation that each parent is responsible for their share of any children residing in the property.

Before COVID 19, the AIB issues a direction that has since been placed on hold whereby they expect a joint income and expenditure as well as an individual one to be sent out with the creditor proposal to provide full transparency.

The fairest way to work out affordability is to complete a joint income and expenditure and then apportion the level of payment according to the contribution to the household income.

Hope this helps.

I don't know who earns what in your household, but if you earn more than your wife then you may be better off if your budget is assessed as a household, rather than just your own income. Otherwise, as Paul says, only 50% of household bills would be deducted from your income and your wife is expected to cover 50% despite her earning less.

Thank you for all your replies.
My wife now earns more than me so my concern is that they will make me pay more to my bankruptcy because she is making £300 extra a month than when i started the process 6 months ago.

Hi Peter123.

I don't think any of us can tell you that your payment will not increase. This can happen if circumstances change.

All you can really do is provide the information that you're obliged to provide and any other information that you believe to be relevant.

Do you know whether the bills were split 50:50 when your payment was first calculated?