Hi Joe,
I came across your blog this morning and have just spent 30 minutes browsing through it – shame I didn’t come across it earlier! I went through the bankruptcy process myself late last year and like you I found it all a bit surreal in the end. I declared bankruptcy in Hull along with 4 other people on the same day, also just average Joes, if you’ll pardon the expression! I’ve starting telling friends and family now, and they’ve been quite supportive. To be honest, I really ought to have confided in them earlier.
It really doesn’t surprise me the statistic you quote on your blog, about 1 in 320 people in 2009. The attitude and tactics of some of my creditors was pretty shocking, and caused so much stress. I wish I’d gone and made the petition for bankruptcy a year earlier already, there were just so many incidents of paying something off but ending up with a bigger bill by the end of the month. I certainly wasn’t helping myself, and given that I hadn’t been doing anything stupid or reckless to get in to debt it just made me so angry.
One of my childhood friends, it turns out, used to work for the Insolvency Service and we’ve decided to try to do something positive and offer advice to people who are going down the bankruptcy route. You wrote somewhere about having a grand or two stashed away at the end, and I couldn’t agree more! It came in so useful for all the little items, and the not so little items like the £510 fee itself – it’s just ridiculous, isn’t it? Our aim is to help honest people applying for bankruptcy do so in the most advantageous way for them. We put together our website, www.bankruptcy-angel.com just last week and would be honoured if you’d mention it on your site.
I look forward to reading more about how your bankruptcy period unfolds,
Kind regards, and good luck!
Marc
Disclaimer: I've not used any of their services, am not connected with any of them, receive no kick-backs whatsoever, and I'm not responsible for them. If you choose to give anyone any of your hard-earned cash then (as always) 'buyer beware'
