Stigma of bankruptcy ‘fading’

Duncan Philp, senior consultant at law firm and estate agent Macbeth Currie, insists that while British consumers generally had a fear of entering bankruptcy well into the 1990s, these concerns have largely faded away during the 21st century.

However, Mr Philp suggests that the debt management problems that lead an individual toward bankruptcy are often self-inflicted and brought on by too much credit card spending.

“If you go back ten years or so everybody would have been terrified to have been made bankrupt,” he said.

“Now it just seems to be a modern phenomenon that people are perfectly happy to go through and a few years down the line they’re back with money again.”

The Insolvency Service reports that almost 16,000 British consumers went bankrupt during the first three months of this year.