This is what bankruptcy looks like…
€650 bankruptcy fee
Yesterday I handed over €650 to The Insolvency Service of Ireland in order to go bankrupt. This is what the fee looks like: €650 in coins and some fivers and tens.
It could be worse. In recent weeks another client of the Irish Mortgage Holders Organisation (IMHO) handed over a cheque from Saint Vincent de Paul for the same purpose. Going bankrupt is not a pleasant action. It is not an easy action. For most people it is the end of the road. The bankrupt may claim it is a new beginning, but it is hard to form a new beginning when you don’t have anything or a job or an income to start over.
Bankruptcy is the end of the road. It is the elimination of debt. That is to be welcomed. But it should also be remembered that unlike the high rollers who take this route, who have pensions and salaries and multiple homes, there are many people like myself who have to scrape together the fee, who no longer own a home and who have no means of income except social welfare.
I welcome becoming a bankrupt, to calling a halt on my debt. However, it is not something that I would have aspired to as a teenager. I didn’t day dream that one day I could be a bankrupt and start all over again. It is a necessary evil.
In about ten days I should be in the High Court finding out if I am to be accepted as a bankrupt. I have waited a long time for this but it is one life event that I shall not be celebrating. I am pensive as I journey in this direction, hope intact but in short supply, eroded as it has been by the daily privations of encroaching debt. Even as I hope to undo my shackles, I am not sure what will replace them.
It is good to be free, but freedom like health, is better enjoyed with money than without.
Well, hello bankruptcy!
It’s a tough road to travel but the start of a new chapter!
It is not an easy road and despite support from family and friends, it is quite a lonely road. I didn’t expect that to be the case. That surprised me.
Keep the chin up, you have got to this stage and still going strong. I will be applying too, just getting the ball rolling. Please if you don’t mind, can you post up how things go, as in the process, court procedure, I am not even onto the legal papers yet, dreading the court itself. Is it very technical legal jargon filling in the papers? Hope it goes smoothly for you 😉
Thank you Annie. It is a beginning but life is not going to change overnight – I have to keep working on that. However, the really big difference is that I am being helped by the Irish Mortgage Holders Association. They are doing all the paperwork for me. They are AMAZING and I suggest you contact them. They only charge what you can afford. In my case that is nothing 🙂 Go talk to them – they are really brilliant. They have taken all my worry and allow me to sleep nights. xxx Jillian
Jillian – great post on the grim and rather brutal process of bankruptcy. Do write more (when you can) about further developments in the situation. I hope that you are now near the end of it. I do admire the courage & spirit with which you have endured all the troubles you have had. Keep strong, all the best,
Mark
Thank you. The hardest thing is not just getting the bankruptcy but the fact that it doesn’t change anything day to day – since I know I have already lost everything. This month I don’t have the full rent and that is much tougher than going bankrupt. 🙁