Jenny’s Story

Jenny was a nurse in Bristol. She was a very good nurse and was devoted to her patients. She was married to Paul who was a social worker in Bristol and they had two children, Tony and Elizabeth.

The marriage was not a happy one as fundamentally they had very different personalities. Whilst Jenny was a party animal who enjoyed the best of what life had to offer, Paul was a stay-at-home type who expected his wife to be cook, cleaner and bottle washer, a role that she rejected.

Paul was devoted to the children and he spent a great deal of money on them. Despite the fact that their combined income was quite low, Paul insisted that the children should attend a private school. The fees were crippling and in order to finance them Paul took out successive loans, eating up all the equity in their house, along with a number of unsecured loans.

Eventually it became difficult for him to obtain credit in his own name, so he took out even more loans in Jenny’s name without informing her and forging her signature.

Meanwhile life had been getting no easier for Jenny. Locked in a loveless marriage she sought entertainment elsewhere and she began drinking quite heavily. Before too long she had developed a significant drink problem which was eating into her private finances and was being charged to credit cards.

She finally walked out of the marriage and moved in with a boyfriend, but he was feckless and did not have a proper job. Before long she was unable to make even the minimum payments on her credit cards and the debts that Paul had placed in her name had been defaulted on.

Eventually she sought help but her finances were worse than could be solved by a debt management plan or similar. Nowadays an IVA might have been the answer, but this happened just before IVAs were introduced. Finally the only option open to her was bankruptcy and so she declared herself bankrupt.

As there was no equity in the house that she still co-owned with Paul he was able to remain in it, and she was never able to prove that he had forged her signature.

Jenny had a great deal of difficulty even in opening a new bank account but after a year she was discharged and soon her life was back to normal. She met a new man who owned a building company and soon they became happily married. She even gave up alcohol.