Bankruptcy time limitation...

[carreauchompeur]

Friend of mine went bankrupt in 1991.

They have just turned 65, and recently received a letter via DWP from a firm of solicitors basically laying claim to around £5000 in a private pension they have.

I was under the impression bankruptcy only lasted a couple of years, can they do this?

They are rather worried that a forthcoming inheritance might also be nabbed in a similar fashion...

[ChrisNic]

Some good information here


https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploa...

[Ginge R]

This thread is prescient, I tweeted about it the other day. Have your friend look at this (interim?) legal finding from earlier this week to see if any of it applies.

http://www.ftadviser.com/2015/01/06/pensions/perso...

[Simpo Two]

Are private pensions in the public domain?

[Ginge R]

I'm no bankruptcy solicitor so am standing by to be corrected, but I imagine that when you get declared so, you will have had to declare *all* of your assets and have them registered. I had a chap working on my cottage yesterday who told me that a PPI claim that he had applied for and was awarded, was taken completely by his creditors a year or so ago. He never even saw it. To say it still wrankled would be an understatement..

[carreauchompeur]

I wouldn't laugh, but PPI claims...

This is all news to me, I thought bankruptcy expired after a few years but I suppose pension assets should have been declared. It's not a huge amount of money, just a bolt from the blue for the creditors to come after it.

[Ginge R]

Well, the ruling might get reversed again yet, especially as pensions are no longer seen simply as income generating vehicles. If somebody went to the wall in a big way, had a large pension and wanted to evade responsibility to a creditor, then they might, conceivably, place it into a family based SIPP whereby growth can be attributed to other trust members (spouse, dependents etc). It would be interesting to see how that would be addressed.