Seeking shelter in personal insolvency law: recession, eviction and bankruptcy’s social safety net

Many legal systems understand consumer insolvency laws as social insurance, providing relief and a “fresh start” to over-indebted households who fall through gaps in the social safety net. Personal insolvency law in England and Wales in practice functions similarly, but in terms of legal principle and policy is ambivalent - sometimes emphasising household debt relief, other times creditor wealth maximisation. This paper assesses, in the context of novel debt problems brought to prominence by recession and austerity, the extent to which the law has embraced personal insolvency’s social insurance function. The discussion is framed particularly by the escalating UK housing crisis and the case of Places for People v Sharples concerning consumer bankruptcy’s (non) protection of debtors from eviction. The analysis illustrates how tensions between conceptual understandings and personal insolvency law’s practical operation undermine the law’s ability to fulfil its potential to produce positive policy responses to contemporary socio-economic challenges.