Trustee's legal responsibilities to creditors and associated timelines

[Simonbanks]

Hello,

Can anyone advise on the legal duties of a trustee in bankruptcy and the associated timelines within those responsibilities/duties.

Of particular interest are reporting responsibilities, and how or when they start to look towards selling a debtors assets if they have not come up with the money to pay everyone, despite promises to do so.

Thank you

[Missimaxo]

I added something to your previous post. Family homes cannot be sold for 12 months after bankruptcy and they have up to 3 years to start the process of selling the property but they could put a charge on it instead. Reporting is usually done annually.

[PallasAthena]

A practical complication with selling the family home can be that family homes are often jointly owned with the bankrupt's spouse/partner and trustees in bankruptcy can only take charge of the bankrupt's interest in the property, not the spouse/partner's.

And there could be a large mortgage /loan outstanding that is secured on the house leaving little available equity for the trustees.

[Simonbanks]

To add to this can anyone advise the timelines the trustee is required legal to adhere to re the provision of an update to creditors. Initially the OR was appointed but they were useless as per most gov run organisations so a trustee was sourced and appointed in Jan 2025. If reporting is required annually is the annual date from appointment or from when bankruptcy was ordered?

thanks

[atticus]

Have you formed a creditors committee, to which the trustee must report?

(See Part 6, Chapter 11 of the Insolvency Rules 1986 - https://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/...hapter/11/made)

[Simonbanks]

No we haven’t

[atticus]

You could ask the trustee in bankruptcy to call a meeting of creditors to see if they want to establish a creditors committee.

[atticus]

The vast gap between the theory of insolvency law and the actual outcomes is what caused me about 20 years ago to become disillusioned with insolvency law and change to a different practice area..

I sense that you are experiencing that gulf between expectation and reality.

[Simonbanks]

Whilst I appreciate and to some degree take on board your own frustrations, I guess I am still none the wiser concerning legal responsibilities of a trustee regarding when they ‘must’ provide the creditors with updates. Is this annually from the date of appointment or annually from the date of the bankcrupcy order?

[atticus]

See post 7.