aesmith wrote:I don't think that should happen, as I'm sure the trustee would have a duty towards all the creditors and also to the bankrupt himself, a duty to settle the debts as efficiently as possible.
I certainly don't claim to be a legal expert, let alone on UK bankruptcy law. There are all sorts of legal standards applied to different people in different contexts. But a requirement to do
anything 'as well as possible' -- or, in this case, 'as efficiently as possible' -- is
extremely rare. People are required to do things reasonably, diligently, prudently, responsibly -- pretty much any adverb you can imagine -- but not
perfectly.
In the bankruptcy context, it would be particularly unwise to impose a standard of 'as well as possible'. Bankruptcies are inherently thorny things, with the debtors losing their assets, and the creditors often losing part or all of their claims. There are very few happy people in bankruptcy court. Nobody would want to administer a bankruptcy estate if any of those many unhappy people could hold the OP/trustee/insert-administrator-here responsible for a slight misstep.
And, of course, in the bankruptcy context, you also have to consider that the debtor's finances will inherently not be in the best of shape already, because, well, they're bankrupt. My car has some modest self-driving features, and many people ask: 'How can you trust it? Computers make mistakes!' And my answer is always the same: 'It doesn't have to be perfect. It just has to be slightly better than me.' If my finances (or my debtor's finances) have already gone into the metaphorical ditch along the financial highway, and the metaphorical traffic of commerce is snarling up, then the metaphorical tow truck of bankruptcy needs to do its job; and I'm in a poor position to complain if there's an extra scratch in the metaphorical paint afterwards.
