Mike P

Hi I have dealt with many people in Australia and helped them file bankruptcy in England. In answer to your questions; 1. It won't affect your credit in Australia 2. It is a fairly complex process as the bankruptcy is dealt with through the High Court in London under Power of Attorney. Every aspect of the paperwork must be correct otherwise the High Court will just refuse the application 3. It does cost money to go bankrupt! The current Court fee is £700 per person and if you employ a Company to work on your behalf they will also charge a fee to handle the process Finally be careful who you use. We are finding more and more that people are getting "ripped off" by companies who claim to know what they are doing but cannot deliver the service. I hope this helps.....

Hi to the Kennys! I saw your thread via our website statistics, and to give you some background I own and manage a UK bankruptcy company that specialises in overseas bankruptcy. I am not too "up" on forums and rules, but I don't think that I can mention the actual company name. Anyway, we have been mentioned already (thank you!) within the thread. I have specialised in bankruptcy and Insolvency for the last seven years and have two companies; one that deals with people in the UK and one that deals with people that have moved from England or Wales (if your last address was Scotland or Ireland there are different Insolvency Rules). We are the only Company that specialises in overseas bankruptcy and we have helped people all over the World. The most popular Countries that we deal with are OZ and NZ so we have lots of specific experience with your particular situation. In general, a UK Bankruptcy will not impact upon your credit in Australia. You basically start your new credit record from scratch when you move abroad (this is the same for most Countries). Apart from preparing the bankruptcy we also supply a 12 month support service to our clients, and for this reason we have a very detailed knowledge of how these processes work, how they are dealt with and we always monitor if there is any impact upon people that use this bankruptcy process. Your situation is very, very common to us. I would say that maybe half of our clients have the same problem. In fact, if the housing market in the UK was buoyant we would not be dealing with so many people, as there would be equity in property and people would use this to pay their debts off. In your case if property values were good you would just sell, pay off the mortgage and that would be it, but like so many others you are a bit "trapped" in your current situation. So what are the options? In many such cases we hand the property back to the lender, anticipate the shortfall amount when the lender sells the mortgage, incorporate this into a bankruptcy and present it on your behalf. You are then bankrupt for 12 months in the UK. This is quite a neat way of dealing with your situation as it resolves the situation and allows people to finalise their UK problems. If you want peace of mind that your UK affairs are finished this may be the way to go. Note; your bankruptcy is shown for 6 years on your UK credit file from the start date of the bankruptcy itself. Also if you have a joint mortgage you will both be looking at bankruptcy and there is a £700 Court fee per person. There are other options such as just leaving everything and hoping that the lender does not catch up with you in Australia, or maybe just handing the property back, waiting for the shortfall and then deciding what to do. Much depends on you as a person; many people I have spoken to want to resolve the issues and others are happy to ignore things. Bear in mind that you have 3 years from moving abroad to file bankruptcy using power of attorney. If you exceed this 3 year period you would need to appear in person, in the Royal Courts of Justice (aka the High Court of London). Finally you mentioned that a few “insolvency salesmen” have made this process sound too easy (I don’t think you have spoken to us yet....)! It is true that the bankruptcy itself is much easier if you are filing from abroad. You only supply the information, sign the paperwork and wait for it all to happen. It is very "remote" compared to filing a bankruptcy in person. One thing you need to realise is that the Official Receiver will look at any assets you own in OZ (such as cars, property, savings, websites, tools etc) and also your disposable income will be reviewed to see if you can enter into a three year Income Payment Agreement (IPA). In the last two years we have seen a much more focused approach from the Insolvency Service and they will apply an IPA wherever possible, whether you are in the UK or abroad. For this reason you may end up paying money back for three years-it all depends on your income and expenditure. Finally don’t let the property just go into repossession. This can add around £10k to the shortfall amount due to all of the additional costs that are involved. I hope that this helped.......!