Why not be a Licensed Insolvency Trustee?

April 25, 2018

The economy has been faltering for over a decade, lost jobs, unions broken up, plants shutting down and moving out of country, cost of living and taxation outgrowing incomes. Why not be a Licensed Insolvency Trustee? After all Trustees must be busy in this economic environment, right?

It is easy to underestimate the hard work and study that goes into obtaining a Trustee’s license, until one is faced with the arduous journey of becoming a Trustee. The candidate must start with at least a college or university education, have a minimum of 2,000 hours of practical experience, complete a three-year programme of self study in the CIRP Qualification Programme and successfully complete the CIRP National Insolvency Examination and an Oral Board Examination before a Trustee, a Lawyer and two members of the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy, as well as successfully complete the Insolvency Counsellor’s Qualification Course.

The whole process of academically preparing for a License takes about four years. Once successfully through that process you will obtain a probationary License for two years before being granted a full License if you have performed satisfactorily. If you had thought you might jump into the programme and get a license to replace a job lost, think again, not so fast!

As for people knocking down our doors, it really doesn’t happen quite like that, every client is a unique client unlike accountants, who have clients return to complete their taxes year after year, most of our clients only file once. For that reason, marketing becomes a huge part of company strategy. Some Trustee’s align themselves with credit counsellors or debt consultants to get referrals but most, hopefully, rely on their own marketing campaigns.

There is a lot of hard work that goes into becoming a Licensed Insolvency Trustee and it can be both a very stressful and very rewarding career on many levels. It seems that many Trustees fall into the profession more by chance than by design, but some do occasionally get out of school with a determination to pursue a career in insolvency.