I will shortly be made redundant and as I have large credit card and other loan debts I am considering bankruptcy. Please could anyone advise me about what happens to the redundancy payment I will receive and also a pension lump sum. I need this money to renovate the house me and my partner have bought in Spain as we are emigrating shortly (house is solely owned by partner) and any left over I was counting on to accrue interest for living on as my small occupational pension will not be sufficient to live on.
The problem with that is my partner has put up all the money for the house and is using all her savings to make it habitable on the understanding that I will reimburse some of the outlay. Also as I said initially I am relying on interest from whatever is left over to top up my pension.
If you spend the money on renovation prior to your bankruptcy it will be hard for the Official Reciever to recover any monies from the building works as realisable assets, however, doing this with the knowledge you are considering bankruptcy is a decision only you can make.
Thanks for that, you have given me something to think about. Can I ask one further question. As a general principle would the receiver ever consider savings as being a necessity for someone in my situation who will be on a low income or will they try to take any financial assets you have?
I think if you gave your redundancy to your partner this could be regarded as a 'transaction at undervalue' and the OR would be within their rights to attempt to recover it. However as b/h says the likelihood of this happening would largely depend on what the OR thought their chances were, the longer you can put between the event and declaring bankruptcy probably the better. The same applies to the pension lump sum.
You would not be allowed to keep any savings unless you can engineer some way of getting them into your pension fund that would not wrinkle the nose of the OR. Same applies to redunancy payment. You might also look to see if you can take a lower lump sum (or none at all) and increased regular pension. Specialist advice needed there i think.
-Best of luck !
'Bankruptcy - an elephant from the front - a mouse from the back'
I am considering bankrupcy.
Posted - 05 March 2007 : 23:24:23
