£0 IPA for 36 Months!

[paulgm_2000]

Hi, hope I'm allowed to post this here.

I was made bankrupt on 5th October this year. I have filled out all the forms the Official Receiver has sent to me and returned them straight away.

I had no disposable income as only working part time at the moment and therefore not able to pay into an IPA.

However, I have just re-read what I have signed and it states that I am subject to a £0 IPA for 36 months. I had been told that I shouldn;t be subject to an IPA unless I have a disposable income of over £100.

Has the OR simply made a mistake and can it be reversed?

Should I contact the OR to question this?

How should I approach this with the OR as I don't want to annoy them in anyway?

Any information would be appreciated as I'm really worried about it now!

Many thanks.

[Skippy]

Hi Paul, I seem to remember seeing a post about this on the BR site and the advice given was to speak to the OR and point out the mistake.

I would email them and say that you believe that there has been an error and ask them to confirm that you only have an NTIPA.

[paulgm_2000]

Thanks Skippy!

[James Falla]

Hi there Paul

I suspect that the OR has chosen to issue a £0 IPA because this gives the option for your payments to increase if your circumstances improve at any time over the three year period en after you are discharged.

If the OR did not issue an IPA at all and then you were discharged, they would loose the opportunity to ask you to start paying after any improvement in your finances.

[Skippy]

James, the advice from Bigal (a former examiner for the OR's office) on the BR forum is that this is and administrative error:

I'd like to add a bit more about the notion of £0 IPA's.
These came about, mainly due to some examiners making the wrong selection when completing the IPA agreement.

When the examiner uses the insolvency service system to set up an IPA, they normally get 3 options, namely: IPA only, NTIPA only or IPA and NTIPA( where NTIPA is the tax element to be collected up to the end of the tax year).

What has happened in the past is that when an NTIPA only was required,some examiners chose the IPA and NTIPA option, which would then produce a template to fill in the relevant information i.e. tax normally collected, but because it would also ask for the IPA amount(when one wasn't being raised) the examiner would put in £0, thus when the agreement was printed off, it would show the NTIPA amount, but also an IPA amount of £0 over 36 months, which is what had been put in because the template was asking for it.
It was never a sneaky way of the OR getting people signed up for IPA's just in case!

[James Falla]

Good to hear my suspicians are unfounded skippy.

[Skippy]

I must admit I thought the same until I read Bigal's reply!

[paulgm_2000]

Thanks for all your comments.

Interesting from what big al says.

It seems this is not an exact science but would appear that the OR has indeed make a mistake??

I will be writing a letter(nicely worded) to the OR to point out the 'error'. So hopefully they will see it as an 'error' and just give me an NTIPA.

Can't see my income changing for the time being anyway.

Thanks again!

[Skippy]

Good luck, and let us know (both forums!) how you get on x

[paulgm_2000]

I've had an answer (of sorts) with regards to the confusion of whether i've got an IPA or not.
My bankruptcy assistance company contacted the OR on my behalf and they have said I am NOT subject to IPA despite the fact thay I signed what appeared to be an incorrect £0 IPA.
Although they have confirmed by phone they won't be confirming it in writing.
I guess I'll have to wait until Auto Discharge to find out in October. Or hopefully Early Discharge, although I;ve heard this is now very unlikely given the new rules that have come in!

[kallis3]

Fingers crossed Paul!