I'm not trying to stir anything, I'm just curious - say my OH was in an IVA and I was asked for my bank statements. Would it be acceptable for me to blank out all my outgoings, just leaving any income showing? Don't get me wrong, I don't buy anything dodgy[:D], but I don't see why the world and his wife needs to know I've bought something off Ebay, or ordered some new face cream.
Also, if I did agree to show my bank statements, would that just be my current account, or any savings accounts as well, and would I have to account for anything paid into the accounts that wasn't salary?
Blanking out expepediture would be acceptable to me. Showing your income is fine. Any special deposits should be explained though. Your savings accounts can be blanked out showing balance but any special deposits would need to be explained.
Last edited by David Mond on Tue Mar 31, 2009 8:44 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Regards, David Mond, Insolvency Practitioner for over 46 years. Personal Insolvency Practitioner of the year 2012, Personal Insolvency Practitioner of the year finalist 2013 & 2014 awarded by Insolvency & Rescue Magazine and 2015 finalist for Personal Insolvency Firm of the Year.
I suppose in the same way as the unscrupulous client who has a No2 bank account and does not tell you about that. Or gets paid in cash which is more likely.
We cannot possibly know whether our clients are pulling the wool over our eyes, but personally I would vouch for the majority of my clients as being honest and trustworthy - because I spend my time personally verifiying this with them through face to face meetings and extensive telephone chats throughout the process, and we are selective about the clients we will act for.
In my opinion the small additional contributions which might flow back to banks as a result of catching offenders do not warrant further unecessary work on the part of the IP. Let us not forget that the forerunner of the IVA protocol was based on the SIVA - which was set to not have any annual reviews at all and have a fixed sum payable as agreed at the outset with no variation if circumstances changed.
How do you review your DMP clients as a matter of interest? Wageslips and bank statements on an annual basis?
I will get Size5 to answer your last point. The Protocol was not meant to mirror the missed opportunity SIVA but to be in addition thereto.
Regards, David Mond, Insolvency Practitioner for over 46 years. Personal Insolvency Practitioner of the year 2012, Personal Insolvency Practitioner of the year finalist 2013 & 2014 awarded by Insolvency & Rescue Magazine and 2015 finalist for Personal Insolvency Firm of the Year.
The bulk of my clients are self employed and the protocol is not practical. How am I supposed to check whether a bricklayer builds a wall on a Saturday for his next door neighbour and does not tell me? How do I check three months income from a gardener who works seven days a week in summer but does nothing from January until March. You say wage slips or 'equivalent' for those that are self employed but do their bank statements checked by the Superviser supercede the cashflows done as Nominee?
Ultimately, I trust my clients because the vast majority of clients would be financially better off in bankruptcy than in an IVA and if they were out to defraud the banks they would not have entered an IVA in the first place. Give the clients credit for trying what they believe is best for them and their families or we will be appointing private detectives to check up.
Michael, For the self employed the protocol is available if you want to use it, otherwise do it as a non-protocol IVA.Presumably you have to look at prior year accounts/tax returns and current cash flows and projections - checking the assumptions etc etc. Melanie, whilst an eye ball to eye ball meeting is good, it does not tell you everything about your client even if you meet them more than once. Even several telephone calls can't help on this. Surely you are not saying that by meeting and speaking to a client that is the extent of checking the veracity of what they tell you? Why did the regulators stop the eyeball to eye ball meeting (except for the self employed?). My firm have a network of 136 practitioners around the country who can see the debtor if the debtor wishes to - in fact Melanie you were one of the original members of that network 4 or 5 years ago!
The protocol is not perfect but we are working to present a clearer, concise system to allow costs to be taken out of the equation and more IVA's acceptable to the creditors. We will get there in the end despite the formidable hurdles that were placed in our way. There are now 9 firms for where the HSBC hurdle rate is no longer in place with more to be added. Times do change.
Regards, David Mond, Insolvency Practitioner for over 46 years. Personal Insolvency Practitioner of the year 2012, Personal Insolvency Practitioner of the year finalist 2013 & 2014 awarded by Insolvency & Rescue Magazine and 2015 finalist for Personal Insolvency Firm of the Year.
The fact that there are now 9 firms without the HSBC hurdle shows that HSBC are discriminating against their clients. Those who choose to opt for a firm that does not operate protocol must achieve a dividend of 40p in the £ as opposed to no minimum for protocol IP firms. This is a disgrace so not only has protocol stifled the SIVA but IP firms who do not use protocol, out of genuine concerns must now use it or their clients will be treated as second class citizens.
We do not operate protocol and we do not offer fourth year valuations as standard irrespective of age or ability to repay. Because we have tried to keep the 'individual' in IVA our clients are being penalised by HSBC. I thought protocol was to be voluntary and not forced upon every IP irrespective of their views on it.
A question for Melanie please. Reading all this - very confusing! What do I have to keep please? My occupational pension comes in every month whilst the other two notify increases (if any) about March/ April each year. Assuming you get my IVA through you can have the lot if you want them. I have gone to an A/L Basic account for all income and expenditure (as I believe you know) my wife has opened a separate account with NW into which she is going to put all the allowances and housekeeping etc. Will you want my wife's statements? Also, do we need to keep receipts, food shopping, petrol, servicing etc etc? we will keep them if you want them. You can have what you like so long as I know what to keep.David
Just to respond to David on the points he has raised directly to me
1 Of course we do far more verification work than just meeting our clients. My point is that by meeting the client you start to build up that trust which in my portfolio tends to last for the duration of the arrangement - and I am very comfortable with the way my cases are supervised which I genuinely believe helps us to maintain a very low drop-off for the duraton of the IVA.
2 I do not know why the regulators amended SIP3. This is a matter for them to deal with but was one I did not agree with entirely.
3 I conducted one client meeting for you out of curiousity to see how this would actually work in practice. We mutually agreed that I would not see any more of your clients, so I don't think it is right to state that I was a member of your network. But if you feel that this benefits your clients to meet a completely separate IP for their client meeting, then I am sure that this is something that works very well in your practice and for your clients as well.
With regard to the HSBC criteria - I am of course aware of the identity of the first four firms who were accepted based on quality and repatriation of money, and we were glad to be one of those firms, can David let us know now who the other five are and whether more are to be admitted in due cours?
To elv5 - I would not worry too much about the content of this post, which is largely three IP firms discussing their own interpretation of set protocols and in reality is probably a discussion which should have been taken off line.
Assuming that your IVA is accepted by creditors, we will let you know exactly which documents we require you to retain when we are in a position to finalise your proposals.
All that HSBC have done is to remove the hurdle rate from those firms who have been making dividend remittances in a timely fashion.
The protocol is voluntary and believe me is working very well for those who adopt it and for those that realise that it is in their and their businesses best interest to adopt it.
The Protocol has not stiffled the SIVA as the Treasury has given a letter of comfort to the Debt Resolution Forum to allow problems and the running of the protocol to be overseen by the IVA Standing Committee and if continual discrimination (of whatever sort) is shown then the Treasury will re-visit the 25% rule for example!
Regards, David Mond, Insolvency Practitioner for over 46 years. Personal Insolvency Practitioner of the year 2012, Personal Insolvency Practitioner of the year finalist 2013 & 2014 awarded by Insolvency & Rescue Magazine and 2015 finalist for Personal Insolvency Firm of the Year.
1. I accept by meeting the client you do start to build trust and subsequent telephone calls do help. We always offer to meet the client either ourselves or utilising Skype or seeing a network practitioner or just a phone call or several. This does work for my firm.
2.I agree with you and concur. Even the Insolvency Practice Council concurs with us.
3. Sometimes a different independent practitioner reviewing the papers and having a meeting could elicit further information (happened in only 1 case so far) but also deals with money laundering issues as well.
I don't have handy a list of the other 5 firms but it is growing as more and more firms either adopt the protocol or do their cases within the framework of same and pay dividends timely.
Regards, David Mond, Insolvency Practitioner for over 46 years. Personal Insolvency Practitioner of the year 2012, Personal Insolvency Practitioner of the year finalist 2013 & 2014 awarded by Insolvency & Rescue Magazine and 2015 finalist for Personal Insolvency Firm of the Year.
Sorry I was a while getting back to the forum in answering the query re reviews of DMP's that we conduct, I have been at fracture clinic all morning having my cast changed (again!!) so have only just seen the query.
Anyway, I digress. The general way that we review DMP's is to conduct the first after 9 months and every 6 months thereafter. We do not generally request to see bank statements and wage slips, instead relying more upon honesty and truthfuklness from the DMP clients. This could, of course, sometimes lead to an unsrupulous client paying less than they should, but of course that is balanced out the other way by the client in effect shooting themselves in the foot by dragging out the DMP for longer than would have otherwise been necessary.
Hope this helps.
Regards.
Cert DR
23+ years in debt advice
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Thanks for the info Mike. Isn't it interesting to see that for firms who run both IVAs and DMPs that there is a very different reviewing process to verify data. One might even surmise that clients in DMPs are more trustworthy than those in IVAs, however I am sure I am just being cynical!!!
As you say it is in the clients best interests to get the DMP concluded as quickly as possible.
