Poles going bust in Britain

“Polish bankrupts of the islands,” headlines Rzeczpospolita. Living beyond one’s means or a decision to return home debt-free are the main reasons why several thousand Polish immigrants in the UK have filed for bankruptcy in recent years, the Warsaw daily reveals. In 2010, British companies offering bankruptcy counselling in Polish recorded a 20 percent increase in the number of cases. According to Andrzej Jaworski, owner of the Zadłużona Wyspa [Indebted Island] agency, the majority of his Polish clients faced bankruptcy having lost their jobs. “Poles did not expect the labour market to crash and bought expensive cars, equipment, holidays, and designer clothes on credit,” Jaworski says. With record debts hitting the £350,000 [€395,000] mark, one Polish entrepreneur blames the banks. “Had it not been so easy to get more and more new loans, I would probably still be running a successful shop,” he says.