Hi CHARLOTTE My husband and I went bankrupt in July together. I know how you feel i was really nervous but there was absolutely nothing to worry about, everybody was really nice and sympathetic. I would advise you ring the court and make an appointment for the earliest time they have available as if you are the first on the list it saves waiting around all day. Fill in yor forms on the insolvency website and then print 3 copies off each and take them with yo to court with your fee. Just check and double check them before submitting and include every bit of money that you owe. All your bank accounts will be closed and we did have trouble getting a new one and were refused by Barclays and Halifax who are supposed to help but eventually got an account with Co op. Our gas/elec providers were not one of our creditors and have been none the wiser, we just moved the dd to our new account. We were able to pay our rent by cash each month and the insolvency said they would not inform our landlord as long as we could send them proof of our tenancy - BIG RELIEF! They were really really helpful as long as you are honest with them and they can see you are a genuine case they will try and help you. My husband is employed and not on a brilliant salary so they said they have an arrangement with the inland revenue to take the tax so his take home pay is no different! Hope this helps, if you have any more questions just post away. I heard court takes a dim view of you paying people to fill in your forms as this money could be paid to your creditors. Anyway it is the best thing we have ever done and we can now move on with our life samx

Hi i might be wrong but we were told that by letting your house become repossessed you are voluntarily making yourselves homeless and therefore i think you can get shunted to the end of the list. We were advised by the national debtline to find a private landlord and then claim housing benefit, we have done this although housing benefit takes forever to sort out claim - 10 weeks is their average waiting time and they don't seem to care how you find the rent in the meantime! We were really lucky to find a great letting agent who was sympathetic to our situation and didn't do credit references. Probably best to find somewhere before you go bankrupt, thats what we have done so you can get a good few months of good credit with the landlord before going bankrupt. It was difficult leaving our house but will feel so much better once bankrutcy over and house is dealt with, already feel the weight has lifted at not having a mortgage hanging over us!

Hi all We have finally reached the point where we can go bankrupt, just about sold everything we can to get the money for my husband and I to go bankrupt so just trawling through all the forms on the insolvency website. Just a few questions: The things that we have sold to get the money to go bankrupt i assume is a good enough reason for selling them i.e my husbands work van? What is classed as an asset? I can't see anywhere on the forms where it suggests what kind of value you consider something an asset - not that we have a lot i just dont want to get into trouble? Part of the reason we have reached this point is because my husbands property maintenance business has died a death and he has taken a job for now working nights in a hotel until things may pick up again. Do we need to list his tools as assets and how do we do it ie just an average value for the whole lot or individually? Any advice for form filling would be greatly appreciated Thankyou

Yes I know what you mean, we haven't sent keys back yet, not sure what to do for best. We are going bankrupt as well as soon as we can find the money, also dreading the court bit? Debt Release Direct made it sound so easy to send keys back but not sure what the comeback is going to ve, so we will just have to wait and see!

lic2009 - What did you put in letter to mortgage company? Did it make you feel any better? do you know what happens next? did you manage to find somewhere to live?

Yes just be careful with selling the house for the mortgage company we have just tried to do that, we had an offer for £40000 under the asking price and the mortgage company sent us some shortfall forms to fill in which would be followed by a contract for us to sign making us duty bound to pay back the shortfall even if we go bankrupt - crafty beggars!!! WE have left our house and found somewhere private to rent, just waiting for them to re-possess now, anybody any advice what the procedure is and how long does it take? which is better letting them re-possess or sending keys back?

Good for you Survivor, we reached a point in February i think after lots of advice on here and then we spoke to the national debtline who gave us a bit of a wake up call and told us we couldnt afford our house with all of our debts, we need to find somewhere to rent, send the keys back and declare ourselves bankrupt. It came as a massive shock at the time but after much soul searching we knew it was the right thing to do and we had no way of ever getting out of all the mess. So we have now found somewhere to rent which is way bigger and more beautiful then we could ever afford to buy and is much cheaper a month and it feels like it was meant to be. We are now saving to go bankrupt and it is still upsetting to go back to the old house but we feel we can deal with it better now we are away from it. Still a big climb to go to get through bankrupcy and sorting house out etc but your health and happiness has got to be worth more!

Yes a letter template would be good, i think it will be good psychologically to send the keys back and move on. Good Luck to you to lic2009.

Thanks for the advoce spamheed, i thought that might be the case, think its best all round to send the keys back to the mortgage company - does anybody know ho wlong it takes or what happens once you return the keys?

Can anyone offer any advice. We have been waiting for the mortgage company to repossess our house, its on the market and we just had an offer for about £40000 under the asking price. We have asked the mortgage company if they will accept that or what figure they will accept and they have told us we need to complete a proposed shortfall sale form? At the end of the letter it states that we will need to sign a deed of acknowledgement of debt which is a legally binding contract stipulating the terms of the agreement for the repayment of the shortfall. We are going bankrupt as soon as we can afford to but if we sign this contract will the shortfall still be included in our bankruptcy? Any advice would be great - just want this whole process over as quick as possible!!

You to lic2009 let me know how you get on? we want to know the same thing, is Gizmo111 around anywhere?

Hi anyone any advice on how to deal with welcome finance???? Is my attachement approved now - no sign of address?

Our mortgage company have just passed our account to their solicitors so we are at the start of them repossessing our house (which is what we want) we have also had our house on the market since jan. We have had a few offers but they are way below the asking price and what we owe on the mortgage - should the mortgage company accept this offer as i'm sure if they repossess it they will sell it for a ridiculous price anyway? It doesn't really matter that much to us as we will be going bankrupt as soon as we have the money but its just that pride thing kicking in again??? We just want the whole thing over and done with as quick as possible so does anybody know what is the quickest route, ie sending the keys back, waiting for them to repossess or selling (if we can secure a sale)

Just from the advice i have read i think you are still responsible for the buildings insurance and council tax until house gets sold either way. We have now moved out of our house and into rented and when we phoned the council they said we can have 6 months exemption from paying the council tax as the property is vacant? Heidi1974 - We were honest to the lettings agent about our bad credit and we were really lucky to find a nice man who helped us find somewhere as he knows his landlords well he knew which ones wouldn't mind as long as the rent is payed. Smaller lettings companies seem to be better for this as bigger ones either want a guarantor or 6 months rent in advance!! We have found an absolutely beautiful place to rent, being away from our old house really helps to deal with the situation, though it is still there and empty whilst we wait for the mortgage company to do their business. Only problem is took all forms in to council for housing benefit, they said it will take at least 10wks to sort out, i said how are we supposed to pay rent in the mean time we already had to borrow 2nd months rent off family as it cleared us out to pay deposit and first months rent up front - they said theres nothing they can do!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Agree courts should do joint bankruptcy - it is bad enough trying to fill these forms in once let alone twice when all info is nearly the same. Still can't decide whether to use Debt Release direct to do it, they will charge us £1500 for both of us to go bankrupt, they fill in all forms and send to court and pay court fees out of that - can anyone give any advice on this and also how to paste parts of peoples posts on here??? I also don't know what we would have done without the advice on here, we would never have had the confidence to walk away from our house and face going bankrupt?

Thanks for the advice will do, does the £510 include court fees and IP?