Hi my cleaners, a husband and wife team from Romania, have asked me for some help with a legal situation they are in, and following on from that a likely debt problem. H&W moved to England permanently in 2012 with their children. When they came they signed up to a 'franchise agreement' with a cleaning company. They later tried to terminate that franchise agreement, and the cleaning company is now suing them for a termination fee and also to enforce a restrictive covenant as well as legal costs. H&W have various complaints about how they were misled about terms of the franchise agreement, how they had no choice but to sign, how the terms are unfair etc etc. Those complaints may or may not be valid, but I expect they would lose in court as it seems from looking at the court papers that the cleaning company knows exactly what it is doing and they have presented their case well. And the reality is that H&W dont have the where-with-all to respond properly as their English is not great and they cannot afford lawyers. Naively H&W ignored the cleaning cos threats when they started, and the cleaning co has now started High Court proceedings. So cleaning co has clearly incurred costs in the thousands (solicitor, barrister, court fee etc). My advice will be to try to settle the case before the court date so as to reduce the costs further. However, and this is where my questions come in, I suspect cleaning co will at a minimum, as well as undertakings re no competition (which H&W can live with), will want their costs covered. I doubt H&W can afford that. So lets say they lose in court, and there is an injunciton about not competing in certain area for certain time, as well as a costs order, made against them. I am thinking they may need bankruptcy or a debt relief order to draw a line under this. They have practically no assets (rented accommodation, beat up car etc), and generally speaking I think would qualify for DRO, which generally looks to be a better solution than bankruptcy. Thoughts welcome generally. I assume that if a DRO was awarded debts under a high court costs order would be subject to the moratorium, and discharged after 12 months? But any injunction would still apply, so they would not be able to work as cleaners in the specified area for the time the injunction applies. I assume that they will qualify for DRO under the residency requirment, as they moved to England permanently in 2012, so are now domicilied here. I assume also that there are no immigration implications of a DRO for EU citizens lawfully resident in England? Does that sound correct? Thanks in advance for any thoughts on this situation.