Bankrupt Cannot Secure Pension Benefits

A bankrupt who is entitled to obtain a pension simply by asking for it cannot seek to have it protected from his creditors, the High Court ruled recently.

The bankrupt had a pension policy which he was entitled to take, but he had chosen not to do so because the payments would have constituted income from which his creditors could seek to be repaid.

The court could not accept a situation whereby a person who opted to take their pension the day before they were made bankrupt could have their pension income taken by their trustee in bankruptcy, whereas a person who could so elect, but had declined to do so, could not. Such an anomaly was clearly not the policy of Parliament when the relevant legislation was drafted.