TBH, our IVA has been a nightmare from start to finish. We went through a 3rd party online company that dealt with the IP on our behalf. We should have just gone to a friend of ours who IS an Insolvency Practitioner, but pride got in the way. The 3rd party we used really messed up the advice they gave in the last few months of our IVA, I won't go into details, but it was awful advice that we took because we knew no better and trusted them.
Anyway, we went into the IVA in Sept 2006 owing £111,000 and completed in the 5 years allotted, and didn't even have our payments reduced even though I was made redundant half way through the term. I went from £35K a year to 3 months of Job Seekers allowance to a 60 hour a week job earning 18k a year and still no reduction in payments. They even tried to take the measly amount of redundancy pay from me. To say it’s been hard is an understatement.
Now we face a delay AGAIN on our completion certificate because of this tax thing 10 months after completion. I feel battered, frustrated, angry, let-down and totally bedraggled by the whole IVA experience.
I know a lot of IVA members won't appreciate what I'm about to say, but...if you owe as much as £111,000....Go Bankrupt.
I have aged 10 years in 5.
I don't feel debt free, I feel exhausted.
What a shame that your own IVA experience has been a poor one measly, and I imagine you are glad that it will soon be over. Unfortunately the VAT issue is provng difficult for IPs and their clients alike.
Just a point on using your friend to act for you. Your friend would have been conflicted from acting under our ethical code - but he may have been able to recommend another practitioner known to him/her in your locality.
Thanks Melanie, its been awful. I also didn't realise my friend wouldn't be able to deal with our IVA...thankfully I didn't go to him, so he's non the wiser and my pride remains intact (just!)
Incidentally Melanie, we have had a letter from our IP regarding the tax situation asking us to sign (or text in?) our OK for them to go ahead with the VAT refund.
Shouldn't they just go ahead and do it without having us to sign for their permission to do so?
Just seems weird to me.
That is indeed a curious thing to ask you to do! Surely they would have applied for their global VAT refund by now, and I am not sure what power you actually have to say yes or no. Which firm are you with?
Hi Melanie...sorry about the late reply, I'm in and out all day.
We're with Tenon. We were approaching our last official month but still had three outstanding payments to make because of my redundancy. They sent us another expenditure form assuming we had another year to go. When I explained to them that we only had the outstanding payments to make they told us to cancel the direct debit in November 2011 as that was the final payment.
Our 3rd party advisor said that Tenon had given us a months grace on the payments. We did nothing else but wait for the 3 months for the closing certificate. In February 2012 we received a letter from them asking to re-mortgage because of a clause in our contract. We were advised then by our 3rd party to apply for PPI.
In March 2012, Tenon phoned again (4 months down the line) to say that we still owed the 60th payment. This was paid immediately. We were told that all payments had now been made. We then receive a letter from the bank to say that £6,500.00 was owed to us (PPI) but because records showed we were being managed by an insolvency practitioner they would liaise with them about payment.
We sent a letter explaining that we had completed payments and were just waiting for our closing certificate. We have not heard from them since. Then Tenon phone to say we need to apply for 2 re-mortgages, both of which were refused and we have since received a letter from them saying that we will not need to do any more. We were wrongly advised about PPI by our 3rd party.
This week we should have had our completion certificate but instead have received a letter about claiming back VAT which they want us to sign in order to arrange a final meeting with creditors to obtain the closing certificate. We have not contacted our 3rd party for obvious reasons as they were very sheepish when we spoke to them about their mistake in advising us to go ahead with claiming PPI even after our last payment was made and they must have known that we were still waiting for our certificate. A total nightmare!
Last edited by measly100 on Wed Jun 06, 2012 6:10 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Hi Measly! What a 'mare!!! The VAT and PPI issues have been a blow to everyone closing their ivas over the past couple of months. I'm not sure the advice on reclaiming PPI was an error though as lots of firms are now reclaiming this asset in repayment of debts.
Hi Measly! What a 'mare!!! The VAT and PPI issues have been a blow to everyone closing their ivas over the past couple of months. I'm not sure the advice on reclaiming PPI was an error though as lots of firms are now reclaiming this asset in repayment of debts.
Hi Broke of London (lol!)
It was the advice of the 3rd party we did our IVA through that said "claim for your PPI now, you are debt free and they can't touch it".
I do understand that the PPI should go to creditors when we are still IN the IVA, but the 3rd party told us we were OUT and debt free!
Maybe we were naive to listen to them, but when we're told it all over...we thought it was all over! Far from it!
PPI is an asset of the iva as it pre-exists the iva. As such, it always belongs to the creditors, even if you claimed years after getting your completion certificate. This third party sound like an absolute prize!
Yeah..they seemed very good at the start, but I think that was just relief on our part that we were doing something about the debt. But my confidence in them lowered every time I spoke to them. Oh well...thanks for clearing up the PPI thing...I thought that was the case, but when you're told by an official body otherwise, you tend to believe them.
A wedge of money would be very nice after a tough few years! But you have the warm glow of knowing you're giving creditors a higher dividend. God, I almost believed myself [:)] LOL
I'm confused as to why you are continuing to liaise with the third party introducer, when you are at the end of the IVA. What influence do they actually have over your financial affairs, and has there been much contact with them over the period of the IVA?
I'm also confused about how you say the VAT issue is being handled - I am pretty sure that your IP will have already applied for their VAT refund, and so I don't quite understand what involvement they expect you to have in this process. Proabbly better to discuss this with them directly, and get them to specifically confirm what is actually going to hold up the closure of your case.
Hi Mel! There was another poster this evening who had the same letter from Tenon. I think Tenon are seeking variations to close ivas before the vat refund is credited. There are apparently lots of other resolutions in the letter too but no mention of what these are.
Why do they need to call a variation meeting for that? A lot of IPs have already had their VAT repayments repaid, and surely this just adds to the costs which creditors will be expected to bear?
