I feel the nightmare is starting all over again

[trever]

I am now seven months into my IVA and the company has just contacted me to say the ammount I have been paying is incorrect- the ammount they want me to pay is over £300 more - apparently I did agree to this payment ammount in a revised schedule prior to acceptance of my IVA- this came through on my work fax so to be honest I just signed it and sent it back - stupid I know! i was just so desperate for it to be all over and done with.

My circumstances have changed a lot over the past months and I have been struggling to make the lower payment- Is there a possibility of asking my creditors to take this into consideration or could they just turn round and ask me to declare bankrupcy?

The company I dealt with were really good when I initially contacted them but the subsequent people I have dealt with have been really un sympathetic- today they made me cry I feel like the nightmare is starting all over again- any advice would be appreciated x

[herbek]

Hi, I've just started and IVA and I don't want this to sound negative but this doesn't add up???

Surely you are paying your IVA by direct debit in which case your IP would be requesting the correct amount you agreed to via the DD system.

If you are on DD then your IP is requesting the wrong amount then why didn't your IP tell you that you were underpaying for 6 months. IVAs have strict rules on payments. this just shouldn't happen.

You must have seen the amount on this fax and your IP must have talked to you about this before asking for your signature and you must have known what this amount was. Didn't you notice the difference in what they were taking in regards to the amount on this fax.

I can only apologise again and again on this post as it's the most unhelpful i have done but this just doesn't add up.

But if what you as saying is somehow correct then your IP has seriously screwed up somewhere with you and if that's the case then I hope you can get it resolved.

Can you provide more info, I'm sure the experts will like this one and come back with good stuff.

[MelanieGiles]

Hi Trever (and herbek)

Herbek's advice is quite correct. This just doesn't make sense. It seems to me that you have not understood what you were being asked to sign, and that is dangerous.

Increased payments of £300 per month at a creditors meeting are unusual, and should have been carefully explained to you before you accepted them. I am sure if this had happened you would have realised that they were unaffordable, and let the IVA be rejected if creditors were not prepared to compromise. Can you tell me what the £300 increase related to - ie what areas of the expenditure contained within your IVA did the creditors think was too high?

There may be little that you can do, as you appear to have signed all of the documents, but your IP is responsible to you for giving good advice and it seems that this has not occured on this occasion. Which firm are you with? I suggest that you telephone to speak to the IP personally, and tell him/her what has happened. In the larger volume processing firms, the IP rarely has any direct contact with their clients, and they may be unaware of your difficulties. As to what will eventually happen, I can only suggest you request your IP to put forward a variation of the original arrangement and hope for the best, but please make sure that you can afford the payments next time as creditors are rarely forgiving twice.

Good luck and keep us posted of your efforts here.

Regards, Melanie Giles, Insolvency Practitioner for over 20 years.
View my IVA blog at: http://melaniegiles.blogs.iva.co.uk

[trever]

Its confusing I know, my initial payment ammount was set at £429 per month at the creditors meeting they asked me to ask my parents to reduce my rent by £40 a month and set the payment at £469 this is what I thought was going to be the agreed ammount, I ammended my direct debit accordingly, then yesterday I got the call that I had been massivley underpaying and could I ammend the direct debit again to £689. Going through my statement I have actually been in my IVA for 9 months with this months payment.I am going to speak to my IP today as I agree that if I was doing things so wrongly surely someone should have told me when I started this and not over 9 months down the line, I agreed to the second ammendment even though it was a bit of a strecth but I felt confident that I could meet the payments, the figure of £689 was mentioned but I refused to accept as the ammount was way too much. I will speak to my IP today and let you know how I get on.

[Oliver]

I would agree with Melanie and Herbak that this doesn't seem to stack up. If the income expenditure calculations that you have done in your budget come to £469 (taking into account the reduced rent) then why is your IP asking for more?

Please keep us updated with the outcome of this.




Best Regards
Oliver

Thomas Charles and Co Ltd.
Experts in personal debt solutions.
Read customer feedback at: www.thomascharles.com/about_us.asp

[MelanieGiles]

Hi trevor

OK that explains £40 of the increase, what about the other £260. You need to check your bank statements to see exactly what you have paid for the last 9 months, and also your Chairman's Report to confirm the exact wording of the modifications requiring the uplift.

It seems to me that the IP is merely trying to get you to pay arrears, but I can't tell without the additional information.

Regards, Melanie Giles, Insolvency Practitioner for over 20 years.
View my IVA blog at: http://melaniegiles.blogs.iva.co.uk

[jamesfalla]

Trever

I agree with the other posters here. It sounds like there is a piece missing from the story that you are not quite clear on. You must persevere with speaking to your IP until you get fully to the bottom of it and understand what has happened.

If there truely has been a mistake and you should be paying more, then it sounds like this will be a problem as you say that you are already starting to struggle paying the original amount. If you find that you really can not afford to continue paying your IVA, then you need to properly consider your options.

Do you own a house? If not then it might be better for you to cut your losses with the IVA and consider a bankruptcy.

James Falla

Expert in IVA, Bankruptcy and informal Debt Management solutions, with extensive experience of solving personal debt problems over the past 10 years. I am regularly featured on BBC News, Finance Programs and Radio.

Visit my blog at: http://jamesfalla.blogs.iva.co.uk