What happens when you are interviewed by the Official Receiver?

If you have presented your own bankruptcy petition you may be interviewed by the official receiver, at court or at the official receiver’s office, directly following the making of the bankruptcy order.

Before the interview you should do 2 things:

Telephone the official receiver immediately to confirm the appointment if you have not already done so or if you have any infirmity, disability or other difficulty which you consider may require special facilities when attending his/her office or during the telephone interview there are any matters that need to be sorted out urgently or you need to re-arrange the appointment or if the official receiver has requested a lot of paperwork or accounting records and you need more time to collect them.

Collect all the financial records, paperwork, and any other information you will need for the interview.  This means all accounting records; financial papers (for example letters, statements, bank records, hire-purchase agreements, credit card statements); the last set of your accounts; any other relevant paperwork about you (and your business).

Ideally, you should have your financial records, paperwork and any other information available when the telephone interview takes place.  If you are being interviewed in person, you should take the completed questionnaire and the financial records, paperwork and any other information with you to the interview.

Depending on the nature of your case, the interview may take 2-3 hours to complete.

After the interview, the official receiver will check the information you have given.  He or she will issue a report to creditors setting out your assets and debts.  This report will usually be issued within 8 (but in any event within 12) weeks of the insolvency order.

If there are material assets, he or she may seek the appointment of a private sector insolvency practitioner to act as trustee to deal with the realisation and distribution of the assets.

If there are no material assets, the official receiver will continue to deal with everything.

Getting in touch with an insolvency expert for free debt advice is as easy as picking up the phone.  Call the Leeds Debt Advice Helpline on free phone 0800 169 1536