My advice would be to agree a payment of £1 a month (IVA) with all your creditors. Unless you owe a lot to one creditor then they are unlikely to make you Bankrupt. They will try and come after you for larger payments or to pay the debts in full, but all you need to do is make the £1 monthly payments. If you send an income and expenses list with your payment offer, they will see that even if they take you to court you do not have the means to pay them any more. You can use an agency to make these agreements and payments for you. They will take a monthly fee for this. The advantage would be that they will be the ones the creditors hassel instead of you.The creditors will go down the path eventually of trying to take you to court for more money, but this could take some considerable time. Your credit rating will be ruined but then it will be if you declare yourself bankrupt. The only gain from going bankrupt is that your debts are cleared, but it does not wipe the slate clean because it is there on your record even after you have been discharged from the bankruptcy order. Do not close any bank accounts, especially if they are not involved, because you will not be able to open new ones if needed in the future.

Hi there lchristmas,

As someone has already said, it takes courage to post your difficulties in this way and hopefully the only replies you get will be to offer constructive and supportive advice.

I am sure that there are many people in the BE community who have family or friends that have experienced financial difficulties and can offer you the kind of advice you need. That's the beauty of this site.

Whatever you decide to do, I hope the means is put in place for you to have a fresh start with your girlfriend without the worry of your debts coming back to haunt you should you return to the UK.

Best wishes,

John.

Yes it was a horrible situation for him but what about the innocent people who were caught up in it? By that I mean all the people that he owed money to who may well have found themselves in financial difficulties, maybe even gone bankrupt themselves. Anyone who has ever been owed money by someone who just chose to run away from it all will be pleased to hear that he had to face the music eventually.
It's also sad for the wife and baby who are also innocent.

I am not unsympathetic to people who get into financial difficulties but only if they face up to it and at least make some attempt to pay something back.

Thanks so much for all the comments and support I have recieved. I must admit I was fearing a greater backlash then one person- so I will take that. I have been trying to repay these debts for about a year now, but I have been treading water- and I have thought about two jobs in Canada, but I think it would be more like three for many many years. Again I know people have issues, and quite rightly I cant expect everyone to understand my position.

Anyway, "Paradisefound" actually hit the nail on the head. It is exactly the advise I have recieved and probably the best route. They dont think it will even get to the CCJ stage, which would be amazing.

Bankruptcy isnt an option, as I have contacted the insolvency agency- and they have said as I have a joint bank account in Canada- that would have to be frozen, thus effectively bankrupting me there aswell. Okay they may not find my account in Canada, but that certainly isnt a risk I can take.

As for the permanent residency, my pasport is actually due back to me in the next couple of weeks. I lived in Canada for a period of time, and me and my girlfirend have been togetehr for a number of years- so the permanent residency was a long process- but workable.

If anyone did have any info on CCJ's that would be amazing, but I know its a long shot.

Thanks so much everyone, I will let you know how I get on!!

Go to your local CAB and they can help with this, better than a firm

All I know about CCJ`s are that when a company is owed money, and isn`t paid it they apply to the court for a CCJ (county court judgement)

To be relatively honest yes it goes on your credit file but even if it gets to the stage of a company thinking of obtaining CCJ against someone, then their credit history is buggered anyway. (Used to be a lending officer at A&L and read credit files day in day out) As a general rule of thumb 3 or more missed payments on a debt will start to f**k your file, 8 missed payments turns into a default and then subsequently a CCJ.

Your credit file looks like this

Blah blah loan

0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0

From the above there have been no missed / late payments in the last 12 months

If it looked like this (which most peoples do at some stage or another)

0 1 0 0 0 1 2 0 0 0 0 0

so a couple of late monthly payments, a month where it got 2 payments behind and then caught up with again.

If you skip a payment your file will look like this

1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1 1

And when your file gets like this for any specific credit product

1 1 2 0 1 2 3 3 3 3 3 8

Your history is toast, and they will start to apply for a CCJ.

As a rule anything that looks like diagram 2 is OK anything with a 3 in it is when it starts to hit sticky water and the system will give a credit decision as a 'refer' which means a lending officer will then look at it and make the choice as to whether to give you credit or not. Anything worse is an immediate fail.