Debtmatters, Grant Thornton and Payplan

[goulda]

Interesting development regarding the selling of IVA's

My wife and I have a joint IVA each having our own agreement although we pay one monthly payment of £757.

We have found out that my IVA has been transfered to Grant Thornton and my wife's IVA has been transfered to Payplan.

Grant Thornton are looking into matters but I do not believe this is satisfactory and will surely create problems especially when we come the Annual Review in May

How will it work?

[MelanieGiles]

That is crazy - but I do gather that some of the information received from both firms was a little lacking in detail, and I am sure that this will be rectified by some common sense and perhaps a further application to Court.

[goulda]

Hi Melanie,

I probably jumped the gun worrying had contact from Grant Thornton are they are arranging to have my wife's IVA transfered to them

[j.ct]

What a carry on at DM.
As I don`t think they knew what they were doing at times. They had sent me a letter saying they had calculated I could pay more yet provided no information in how they worked it out! So when I phoned up I was told just to continue to pay current amount and some one would contact me to sort out how much I should be paying.
No one bothered so wrote in. Did not get a satisfactory answer. So then wrote to my Supervisor his reply was to just continue paying what I have been paying. Had a message left on my voice mail some one calling about my arrears. When phoned up took 4 attempts before anyone answered the phone was told I had no arrears and that my IVA had now been transferred to PayPlan and I should contact them regarding anything about my IVA.
Then received a letter from GT saying they had taken over my IVA.
Phoned up GT as was a bit concerned about Item 7 a £500+vat charge. Which the person I spoke to was really helpfull and explained the charge was between DM & GT and was nothing for me to worry about. I then mentioned about the phone message and was told I was over a £100 in arrears. Which contradicted everything been told by DM. So fingers crossed GT will be able to sort out the mess DM had created.

[MelanieGiles]

Your new IP will eventually get around to dealing with this, but do be patient as they have a large task ahead of them. And ebing £100 in arrears is neither here nor there in the great scheme of things, so keep paying the payments and this will eventually be sorted for you.

[craigbeas]

Melanie - I wrote a week or so ago saying how fed up i was with this and have again chased today for progress since writing a letter 5 weeks ago around a final settlement amount. I have been told today that there is still a 5 week backlog and then it will be 6 weeks to progress case for creditors meeting. I dont understand how any company in this day and age can get away with such poor service, this should have been looked at before the transfer. Who can i complaint to at either GT or a ombudsman?

[MelanieGiles]

Appreciate that this is something that Debtmatters should have looked at prior to the transfer, but your new IP cannot be blamed for that. Do bear in mind that GT have taken over 4,500 cases which they have no prior knowledge of - this is a significant number and will take some time to process. At this stage I do not feel that a complaint is warranted, but do continue to pester and try and find out the name of the individual case manager who is responsible for your case.

[craigbeas]

Melanie thanks for reply but i must admit i am surprised by your view as it is totally on GT side. This country is falling apart as any good comapny would have revewed and staffed accordigly during due diligence. To wait 6 weeks is totally unaceptable.

[MelanieGiles]

Maybe that is because I am also an IP and have some knowledge of the difficulties encountered in taking over someone else's cases. If you feel that you have a grievance, then you are free to pursue that throught the firm's own complaints procedure and ultimately the regulatory bodies.

[craigbeas]

Melanie, in your proposal opinion from a sale relaisation 0f a house what percentage or amount do creditors let you keep towards another smaller property or do they look to recover more than the minimum dividend?

[MelanieGiles]

If I were your IP, I would look at the individual facts of each case to determine how much was actually needed to fund deposit, legal fees, removal costs etc and then put that to creditors. Does this relate to your individual circumstances, and do you need advice on this point.

[craigbeas]

Melanie - When we took our IVA with Debtmatters they did not let us include a £10,000 mortgage on my mom and dad's property which they took out to pay off some of our debt a few years ago, we pay £100 per month but this was not part of the IVA. We still need to pay this back and wonder if we can include this in our Final settlemen t proposal as my mom and dad want to sell anyway. What is your view?

[MelanieGiles]

This debt to your parents absolutely should have been included in your IVA alongside any other unsecured debt - you could not claim it to be secured as it was not taken out over your asset and the legal position is that you owe your parents and they owe the secured lender.

How are you managing to pay off £100 per month when all of your disposable income is supposed to be paid to creditors?

My personal view is that if the debt is to be included in the final settlement, you must disclose this to the other creditors and then still offer to pay a similar dividend to that already pledged. If your parents are then going to accept a lower sum in full and final settlement, you should not pay them any further monies into the future, as the other creditors would not get that.

[craigbeas]

Thanks, we had £50 contingency and have had to use the money they put aside for clothes etc to pay it off as debtmatters would not include it. Due to the increase in our house (which was excluded at time of IVA) we think we should be able to sell and pay off the 45 pence dividend as well as paying off Mom and Dad debt. My concern is wont they say that we should only pay 45% of mom and dad debt as well? The mortgage is not transferable.

[MelanieGiles]

Yes - that was my point in the final paragraph. Was your property included in the IVA - ie is there a requirement to equity release during the final year? If so what is the property worth now, and how much is your outstanding mortgage?