Thought I would open this thread and aim to keep it going until with the AR is complete and the bankruptcy complete!! Which may be a few months.

AR POSITION
had FDR. X told that he would not get any £ as the debt outweighs the assets and that I would be awardrd the house.
No FH date yet - been advised it will be Feb/Mar next year.

Bankruptcy
X has written to sy he is petitioning for bankruptcy 11/12

PROSPECT at first sight -
If FH first,
I am awarded house and contents etc. X nothing.Bankruptcy happens and bad debt written of for X I keep joint debt!

Bankruptcy first - worst case
X (or Official receiver)get 50% of all assets (inclduing my payments off the mortgage, my car and the contents of the house.)I get the joint debt! FH - X will try for SM and I watch what the judge does!

RESPONSE
I cannot pay off my x - therefore bankruptcy inevitable. It is now a race to see which is heard first the divorce or the bankruptcy.

I am scared as I do not know exactly what will happen, I feel vulnerable and I hurt and of course I don't understand why. But I will seethis throughI will not be bullied into borrowing from family or friends and I will let you all know the facts of what happens.

My solicitor has advised the following:

X petitions for bankruptcy on 11/12

This means that we cannot complete the finances as a judge can not finalise a court order against un discharged bankrupt.

the process we are going for is to put forward a consent order to be agreed in principle by the DJ at the FH (although obviously this just a simple exercise rather than the full day that the DJ wanted)

The OR handles the bankruptcy and should be in touch with me in the next 4 months. My x owes a lot of money to my company and is therefore a bad debt - this is likely to bankrupt my business - but never mind eh?!?

I will wait and see
1) whether the OR take: 50% of the rent I get on FMH (though I pay all the mortgage)
2) whether the money taken from teh childrens trust funds can be turned into hard loans rather than soft and are therefore creditors
3) whether my car is classed a family
4) what items I have the Or considers joint
5) the equity in the house (all due to my paying off the repayment mortage) is mine or split.
6) CSA maintenance is honoured
7) Previous court order for costs is honoured

There are various schools on thought on all the above and the CAB, debtline, bankruptcy helpline, rumour etc all differ!!

If there is anyone else on this position I would be interested to compare notes

Awaiting the next steps but so far the postion is likely to be:

I buy the house from the OR for £1 plus £211 legal fees.

x has no rights to my car or personal property.

As to joint that is only art or antiques - unfortunately the only art worth anything is his, the antiques are his familys.

He has said I have to tell him my car and only use my account for living expenses - he is incorrect.

So I should be grateful that house prices have slumped!! :>

X went bankrupt on 11/12.

So far I have heard nothing from the OR or any creditors.

However I did contact the OR direct - just to ensure she had my correct contact details and was aware that there are tenants in the FMH and that I was interested in buying my xs share ofthe house.

It should be noted that in error the bank closed a business account that my x used to be signatory for. This is now in the process of being reopenned.

I spoke to the OR - when an individual goes bankrupt one of the first actions is for the OR to write to the banks asking for any accounts with the indivudals name on which are overdrawn or with nil balance are frozen. I have also been told that if you have a joint account which is overdrawn and your partner goes bankrupt you need to it is in your interest to clear the overdraft and close the account before the bank do as this MAY but does not mean it WILL a bankrupty flag is also put on your credit rating. Obvioulsy anyone in this situation needs to look at whether they can pay it and whether there is a liklihood that the bankrupt assets will cover some of the overdraft.

Just to say thanks for posting this ongoing - it's really helpful - will help so many people faced with similar problems.

Thanks from me too. It looks like I will have to consider going bankrupt as well. We had our FDR in December where I suggested we pay off the joint debt including tax bills of well over £200k. The houses have been sold now so there is a pot of money sitting there with just about enough to pay off all the debts so we can both walk away with nothing but no debt. The judge agreed that this was a good idea making it clear that neither of us will get a mortgage for a very long time (we're both renting now). Her solicitor agreed to paying the joint debts. I received a letter from her solicitor today saying they will agree to paying off joint debt if her personal debt is paid off and giving her cash of £100k thereby leaving me with debts of £100k. I'm earning less than I used to and my contract finishes in a few weeks with nothing on the horizon. I've also just found out that the Final Hearing won't be until July, not April as I had expected. I'm representing myself but her solicitors bills are reaching £20k and the debts keep increasing. She is just plain greedy and as we have lots of joint debt the poetic justice in all of this is that if I have to go bankrupt then she'll end up going bankrupt as well.