If you own your home, whether freehold or leasehold, solely or jointly, mortgaged or otherwise, your interest in the home will form part of your estate which will be dealt with by your trustee. The home may have to be sold to go towards paying your debts.

If your husband, wife or children are living with you, it may be possible for the sale in the bankruptcy to be put off until after the end of the first year of your bankruptcy. This gives time for other housing arrangements to be made. Your husband, wife, partner, a relative or friend may be able to buy your interest in your home from the trustee. This may be so even if that interest is very small, worth nothing or you owe more on the house than it is currently worth. Such a purchase would prevent a sale of the property by the trustee at a future date. Your spouse or any other interested party should be encouraged to take legal advice about the home as soon as possible.

If the trustee cannot, for the time being, sell your home, he or she may obtain a charging order on your interest in it, but only if that interest is worth more than £1,000. If a charging order is obtained, your interest in the property will be returned to you, but the legal charge over your interest will remain. The amount covered by the legal charge will be the total value of your interest in the property and this sum must be paid from your share of the proceeds when you sell the property.

Until your interest in the home is sold, or until the trustee obtains a charging order over it, that interest will continue to belong to the trustee but only for a certain period, usually 3 years, and will include any increase in its value. Therefore, the benefit of any increase in value will go to the trustee to pay your debts, even if the home is sold some time after you have been discharged from bankruptcy: the increase in the value will not be yours.

If, after a certain time, usually 3 years, your trustee has not sold or obtained a charge over your interest in the property, or applied for an order of possession or obtained a charging order against the property, or you have not come to any arrangement with your trustee about that interest, it may be returned to you.

If you were made bankrupt before 1 April 2004, your trustee has until 1 April 2007 to deal with your interest in your home. However, if your trustee was not aware of your interest in a property on 1 April 2004, he or she will have 3 years from the date of becoming aware of it to deal with your interest.

If you rent your home, the trustee will normally have no interest in it and therefore cannot sell it. However, if you do not comply with the terms of the tenancy agreement, the landlord may take action against you. In most cases the Official Receiver or your trustee will need to tell your landlord that you are bankrupt.

Note: A leaflet called “What will happen to my home? Information on your home when bankruptcy occurs” is available from your local Official Receiver’s office.