Can Payplan please comment on this? (Title change)

[MelanieGiles]

Can I suggest that you arrange to have a private audience with Nick Payne, who is a good IP and is obviously in a position to explain to you why Payplan insist on inclusion of the ultimate bankruptcy clause where this may not be necessary - or at least it should perhaps be an option for creditors to suggest rather than you, the debtor.

If you then remain unsatisfied, you could consider seeking legal advice on the contractual terms you originally signed up to, and the best method of putting a variation to creditors which enables you to comply with something which is actually in your control, rather than an equity release which relies upon a willing lender, affordability and a loan to value criteria being met. The IVA protocol clearly has provisions to deal with these issues now, and whilst your case is not governed by the protocol, parallels can be drawn in presenting variation proposals.

It might be helpful to the forum, and particularly those homeowning clients of Payplan who have concerns about their ability to comply with equity release provisions, if Nick could confirm what his firm's policy actually is with regard to non-protocol IVAs.

[MRBLUESKY]

If you can afford 12 extra payments,and this is agreed by creditors which is the norm by a variation then all will be well.

[brokebryn]

Linda,

Quite. This is what they had to say on the latter point, paraphrased by me:

6. Yes, indeed, you probably would have done things differently if you had been aware of this back in 2007, but no one could predict what the economy would do back then, and no one could foresee that you would not be able to remortgage.

So, basically, in plain language, tough luck buster.

Whether you are right are not to be worried no one knows, check your original Chairman's Report. The fact is that, email or no email, they will have to approach the creditors if you have sufficient equity, are obliged to release it but can't remortgage. Then you have to see what the creditors say. If Paypaln have been informing me correctly,and there is no reason of course why they should not, your variation proposal about equity release will contain the comforting clause that if the creditors reject your variation your IP will fail your IVA and petition for your bankruptcy. I hope that it will be fine for you.

[brokebryn]

Mel,

Nick has evidently brought this all to the attention of my own IP but I have heard nothing back yet.

[kallis3]

Hopefully he will be in touch tomorrow.

[MelanieGiles]

I am sure that they will get back to you as soon as they can brokebryn. I know Nick and client care is at the heart of his modus operandi. He will be concerned that this issue is distressing you, and now it has been brought to his attention there are clearly things to be looked into.

I don't think for a minute that any of your creditors would select the bankruptcy route, but this cannot be ruled out if it is being offered to them as an option. I am not sure why this is the case, but we should let Payplan deal with this and you can rest assured that they will want to clear up this matter for you - and the number of other Payplan clients who have expressed some concerns recently.

[brokebryn]

Depending on your perspective, if I were a creditor reading that clause about failing the IVA if the ''meeting' [laughable terminology] is rejected, I could quite easily interpret it as an ultimatum. So it is also badly flawed from the purely tactical point of view.

[country girl]

Thank you, I hope you get the result you need.

I can not imagine that I will be able to re mortgage because of our ages let alone anything else.

We are thinking we will have to downsize may have to sell up and rent then.

I do not want to go bankrupt that is why I chose an IVA.

Linda

[brokebryn]

Mel,

You write 'I don't think for a minute that any of your creditors would select the bankruptcy route' - and I am sure that there are weighty financial arguments against it, but either that or 'selling your house' - ironically the very thing that the IVA is supposed to protect - are, as Payplan themselves have written to me, 'the only options available to you'. So the end result is exactly the same! Either way, you lose your house. Had I known of this appalling strategy of concealment in 2007 then I would not have touched this company.

[MelanieGiles]

Give them a chance to address your concerns brokebryn - you may be pleasantly suprised at the outcome and clearly this is now being dealt with at the highest level.

[brokebryn]

Linda,

It depends on a lot of things - how much equity you may or may not have, whether your IVA is Protocol compliant or not, etc. Let's hope that Payplan manage to clear this up one way or another soon. I hope Nick Payne does get back to me - and therefore to you and a lot of others - on this one. He seems a very decent guy. In the meantime, if you are concerned, you might wish to broach the issue with your own IP. He/she might tell you that in your case you have nothing to worry about - simply because you don't or won't have have sufficient equity.

[greedfighter]

Although I check the website most days my IVA with Payplan has been relatively trouble free and like the original poster generally have had nothing but praise for them. Unfortunately in the last six months I have found them to be very unhelpful, some of their correspondence has become very 'shirty' and they appear to be looking for any opportunity to fail my IVA. Overall I have become very unimpressed with their service lately. I have about eight months left to to go now which includes a 3 month extension for a payment break but I fell that this has become a money grabbing exrercise.

I have no equity in the property and the original proposal does not specifically cover this. It covers an extension of my IVA equivalent to any equity therefore I assumed that if there was no equity my IVA would end after year 5.

Unfortunately as a result of this thread I looked at my proposals again to discover one of the modifications states

'At the end of 60 months the Supervisor will convene a meeting of creditors to ascertain if there are any additional modifications they wish to impose prior to the issue of a completion certificate'. If the debtor is unwilling to accept any such further modifications then the Supervisor will withdraw from the arrangement and the arrangement will fail'.

It does not mention anything about bankruptcy but I am like the original poster now worried that it may well all have been for nothing
since this does appear to put me at the mercy of creditors. Quite simply it seems they could ask for payment in lieu of having no equity or extend the IVA anyways.

[MelanieGiles]

That is an unusual clause, and one I have not come across in practice before. An IVA is a contractual document, and the contract is entered into at the outset - so I cannot see why there would be the need to invite amendment at the end, when a debtor has fully complied with all of their contractual terms. Perhaps Nick could clarify this point as well.

[brokebryn]

There seem to be quite a lot of skeletons emerging from the Payplan closets on this particular subject. Like you Mel, I certainly hope that Nick can clarify these issues and, in the process, set several minds at rest.

[MelanieGiles]

Knowing Nick I am sure he will want to be able to do this for you.