An Edmonton bankruptcy trustee says his office has already seen an increase in the number of people filing for bankruptcy and he expects things will only get busier in the new year.
Barton Goth, a bankruptcy trustee at Goth & Company Inc., says the increase has been “quite dramatic” between September to October 2008 when economies around the world began to nosedive.
“It doesn’t seem to have slowed down,” said Goth. “Our volume went up and we had a large volume to start with.”
The number of bankruptcies in Canada has started to rise in 2008, according to figures from the Office of Superintendent of Bankruptcy Canada.
The figures say 46 per cent more bankruptcies were filed than in September the same month in 2007. October also saw a 51 per cent increase from the previous month.
“I expect it will be busy this year,” said Goth.
“We’ve got an average household right now that spends 131 per cent of its monthly take home income and that’s just something that has been going on for far too long.”
