Each week I meet with about a dozen people in my Brantford bankruptcy office. The Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy released statistics this morning showing that personal bankruptcies are on the rise in Brantford.
In the first three months of 2009 there were 125 residents of Brantford that filed bankruptcy, and a further 47 people filed a consumer proposal. That’s a total of 172 filings, as compared to 124 filings during the same period last year.
That means that personal insolvencies in Brantford increased by 38.7% in the first three months of this year.
How does that compare with the rest of the province?
Brantford’s insolvency rate increased by a similar amount to Kitchener (36%), Toronto (39.9%)Windsor (39.5%) and fared much better than Hamilton (47.2%) and London (62.5%).
The Ontario rate was up by 40.7%, so Brantford fared slightly better than the entire province. In Canada consumer insolvencies increased by 35.9%, so Brantford was slightly worse than the national average.
However, the statistics only tell part of the story. In the last week I’ve met with a number of people in Brantford who are worried about losing their home, and they are worried about further job losses. The numbers are bad now, and they worry they may get worse. My message to them is that there is help available, so if you don’t want to be a statistic, give my office in Brantford a call at 519-770-4440, or send me an e-mail, and let’s talk about ways to deal with your debts so you can avoid becoming a statistic.
