bankruptcy duration - Swiss perspective

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Please could anyone answer this question? How long does bankruptcy last in Britain? In Switzerland it is lifelong and can be inherited by your children if you do not warn them to refuse your estate. They may have been unborn at the time of the debt but they are still liable for a parent's debts. You can be pestered by a bank and then a debt collector for a shortfall on a mortgage or even on outstanding interest once the entire capital is paid back to the bank (this is my case), for a period of 20 years, renewable on a yearly basis, so that that period may also become indefinite at the debt collector's discretion.

If the bailiffs find nothing to take from your home then they will go to your workplace (with the state's blessing) and oblige your employer to give them a portion of your salary to help pay back this debt. In my case this would have taken 90 years! I managed to win a reprieve for a year. It was also extremely humiliating after years of being an unsalaried Mum and helper in the family business to be so embarrassed in front of my new employer, at the age of 47. This seizing of your salary is accompanied by placing you and your children on "minimum vital" which is what it sounds like and will last your entire life and your children's entire childhood until the debt is paid. No holidays, no treats, no plans for the future, no right to a decent haircut unless you want to break into your food money.

Any information on what is the norm in other European countries as well as Britain would be welcome as I am trying to prepare a report to show how inhumane Swiss law is when compared with other civilised countries. I will return to the UK quite soon but at the moment it would be as a refugee, with no home or resources, escaping from a country where my family and I have now been persecuted for 6 years.

Thank you

G. Kalter

-- g.kalter (g.kalter@elsevier.ch), November 27, 1999

Answers

Sounds awful.

The most comprehensive and up-to-date sources of advice I know of on this are insolvency.co.uk http://www.insolvency.co.uk/legal/bankrfaq.htm and the Insolvency Service's guides at http://www.open.gov.uk/insolv_s/insolvhm.htm

Good luck

Lee

-- Lee (repossession@bigfoot.com), November 27, 1999.


Leave the country asap come to uk & claim refugee status. contact social services they will house you. good luck.

-- anon (none -existent@test.com), September 02, 2000.

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