County bankruptcy shock
Tuesday 24th February 2009, 4:05PM GMT.
The number of people filing for bankruptcy in Shropshire has rocketed in the last three months of the year as the economic crisis begins to take a toll on the county.
According to new figures released by the Ministry of Justice, the county court in Shrewsbury saw a surge in the number of debtors’ bankruptcy petitions issued.
The court dealt with 88 petitions between October and December 2008 – an increase of 47 per cent on the same period last year.
There were also eight petitions initiated by creditors in the last three months of 2008, although there are no comparisons available with the previous year.
Shropshire and the Midlands region appears to have been one of the hardest hit by the recession with increases in debtors’ bankruptcy petitions filed higher than the national average.
The figures are for both companies and individuals but Simon Airey, chairman of Shrewsbury Business Chamber, said he believed the majority of the debtors filing for petitions would be private individuals.
He said: “People have been mortgaged up to the hilt and they have spent a lot on their credit cards because they felt relatively wealthy because of the high house prices.”
The MOJ data shows that across the country between October and December there were 15,358 debtors petitions – an increase of 32 per cent on 2007 and a 12 per cent increase on the previous quarter.
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Not to mention the massive amount that have decided to take the easy way out of their own debts via IVA’s and let someone else take the brunt of paying off their debts. If people were more sensible with their money instead of impulse buying and squandering it these figures would be so much lower and this country in a much better state financially!
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