No. You must still keep up mortgage payments or risk losing your home.

When you file for bankruptcy, all council tax debt from previous years and anything you would owe in the present year are wiped – even if the council has summoned you for them.

Important points to note:

1. If you are living with someone else eligible to be responsible for paying the council tax (e.g. not a child or a student) then you are likely to be jointly liable for paying that council tax, so the council will seek to recover the whole amount from the other party, such as your partner.
2. As with income tax, if your bankruptcy exempts you to pay council tax for the rest of the tax year, once again, any money ‘saved’ will go towards the IP

Yes, you can move house during a bankruptcy.

Only the council tax for the house you were living in when you went bankrupt is included in the bankruptcy.

If you move into a new house, you have to start paying council tax on that new house. You didn’t owe this money when you went bankrupt, so it’s not included in the bankruptcy.

The higher IPA you’re paying because you’re exempt from paying the council tax debt on your previous property (because it’s included in the bankruptcy) should be lowered to accommodate the council tax you need to pay on the new property. Your official receiver will sort this out for you – make sure you contact them.

One of the biggest concerns people have when considering bankruptcy is whether or not they will have to sell their home. The answer to this question depends on a number of factors, including the value of your home, the amount of equity you have in it, and your particular circumstances. Speak to your official receiver (the person in charge of your bankruptcy) if you are unsure.

If someone has a beneficial interest in your home, they are entitled to a portion of the proceeds, should the home be sold.

Some examples of people with a beneficial interest include:

• Someone who depends on that home
• Someone who co-owns that home
• Someone who greatly contributes to the expenses of that home

You can postpone the selling of your home by:

1. Proving someone has a legal right to your home
2. Asking someone to buy a share of your home
3. Proving your home has negative equity. Negative equity is when your mortgage value covers a large proportion or all of the actual value of the house.

Someone who has a legal right to your home can delay the sale of the house to a year after you’ve gone bankrupt. If you need to extend this to over a year, you need to prove and provide supplementing documents in one of the following categories:

• Show the person who has a legal right is at school and is in need of the support they get from school
• Show the person has a mental health problem
• Show the person is disabled
• Show the person is over 70 years old

There is no legal requirement to tell anyone if you plan on selling a share of your house – but it is advisable to let your official receive (the person in charge of your bankruptcy) know in advance.

There is no set share of your home that needs to be sold.

Your home won’t be sold unless the value of your share is more than £1,000, after any sale costs have been taken off.

There is a review two years and three months after bankruptcy but, in theory, it can be sold at any point in the future. This is known as a charging order. However, if three years have passed, your beneficial interest in your home will become yours again, provided the following things haven’t happened:

• A charging order has not been made
• You haven’t sold your beneficial interest
• A court order legally requiring you to leave your home hasn’t been made
• You haven’t agreed to pay a portion of your beneficial interest.

If you think the bankruptcy will make you homeless, please contact your local council as soon as possible.

No. The landlord has the right to evict you, if you don’t keep up with rent.

Legally, your official receiver (the person in charge of your bankruptcy) has to make sure you are left with enough money to pay rent as that is a necessary expense.

Your landlord will not know about your bankruptcy unless you fall behind in paying your rent.

If a clause in your tenancy agreement legally permits a landlord to evict you for being bankrupt, they can act upon that.

However, if you’re regular and reliable with paying rent or offer to pay rent for months in advance, they should be OK with letting you stay.

You will lose some of the belongings. These will be sold to help pay off your debt.

Yes, because there is no set criteria. What is essential for you may not be for someone else. If you do disagree, you can appeal to the Court, but first try and get the bankruptcy trustee to change their mind.

If you don’t agree with the valuation done by the bankruptcy trustee, you can contest it by getting your own valuation done.

The best thing you can do to salvage the item is sell it to the other owner fully. This will stop the bankruptcy trustee from either persuading the other owner to hand it over or going to the Court to seize the item.

In most scenarios, you will have to give hire purchase goods back, unless you can justify keeping them to your bankruptcy trustee.