IVA recently approved but income is down already..

[flowerpot]

Hi there,

Our IVA was accepted in April, and we are about to make our second payment.

Recently our tax credits were reviewed and has now been reduced by almost half, and they still havnt finished so it could go down even further.

We are just about able to make the IVA payments, but it has meant we are have had to cut back to living on beans basically, and things are much tighter than the I&E that was agreed in the first place. We were allowed money for a contingency and optical expenses but these have had to be cut completely now.

We could probably just about manage like this for the rest of the year, but it is unpleasant.

However, when it comes to the first year review, will we be expected to continue on the reduced income and difficult budget seeing as we tried to in the first year? or should we contact our IP?

I feel daft calling the IP so soon into the agreement, and dont know if there is anything they can do at such an early stage anyway??

For example, if they reduced out IVA repayments, doesnt it have to be made up at some stage?

Kind Regards
Flowerpot

[indebtforever]

hi sorry to see you struggling so early into your iva i know myself what it is like the best thing to do is to contact the ip and tell him about the mess with these credits i think everyone has suffered with these its worse than the poll tax.He may be able to lower your payments without the need to contact creditors some have a 15% clause.as for next year at review it will be picked up and your payments will need to be lowered or the iva will fail and this helps no one

[Oliver]

So sorry to hear that you have had such a difficult start to your IVA. You should contact your IP as soon as possible to see if there is anything they can do to take some of the pressure away from you.

[flowerpot]

Thank-you, I think you're right to say I should contact our IP.

I just wondered if we struggled on for now, would our own tight I&E become expected of us each year, IE no contingency, etc. Personally I agree with you that it would set us on a road to failure.

I suppose I feel guilty that its not the creditors fault the tax credit system often leads people into problems, and at the moment we are trying to cut back anywhere we can.

and also if we have a reduction so early on, how would we be expected to make it up in the future?
xx

[indebtforever]

it depends on how much reduction you need if it is much then most possibly they will add it onto the end of the iva as extra months.

[plasticdaft]

You wont do yourselves any favours living on beans alone(although you could possibly produce you own household gas and save a packet). There is no point in struggling on next to nothing,call your IP and see what can be done.