JohnPaul:
I don't have an IP yet. I'm still in the process of selecting one!
What I absolutely DON'T want, is to pick an outfit with an ostensibly good reputation, and then have huge trouble getting hold of them when I actually need to - or who expect me to have all the paperwork to hand all the time.
This is partly due to the nature of my work - I'm out on the road a lot and am almost phobic about being stuck in a position where something's gone wrong, I'm nowhere near my paperwork, the person dealing with my case is not available, nobody else can help etc.
BigPete:
Thanks for the info on the company registration. Seems they've got a lot of subsidiary companies, one of which is the Debt Consolidation Centre, which it appears has the correct licenses to offer IVAs:
Company Registration Number 5829935
Consumer Credit Licence Number 590778
Data Protection Licence Number PZ9593970
Can't find the same information for H&HC though.
First impressions: H&HC seem to be pretty hands-on, have given me a direct personal contact, and are extremely responsive. In many ways their response has been comparable to the one I got from ClearStart in the first instance - just a heck of a lot faster.
I spoke to my named contact with them at the weekend (he called me BTW) and he's suggested what I can do over the course of October is get a new bank account set up, transfer my wages into that account, set up the standing order to them and stop all payments from my present account. They will start contacting my creditors this month, so in effect, from next payday, my fixed expenditure will be toward rent, council tax, and the pot for repaying the creditors.
If, at a later date, an IVA turns out to be a better option then he says this would reduce the amount of effort required.
Ultimately, this all sounds extremely reasonable to me; the only concerns I have are
(a) nobody seems to have reviewed H&HC as a service provider and they don't have a website of their own.
(b) I have no idea how to go about verifying their legitimacy within the regulatory framework. Just because the DCC has the right bits of paper, doesn't mean H&HC do.
IVA practitioners are subject to greater regulatory scrutiny than DMP companies and additionally must be members of a RPB, how do I go about confirming they have all that?
(c) I know up front how much money H&HC are going to "make" from me if I go ahead with this proposal and I know on paper at least what their plan of attack is. From my noob standpoint, it looks like a very hassle-free way of proceeding.
What I DON'T know is how, generally, other IPs would go about it. I know ideally the IPs need figures to come up with a tailored solution but surely they must have a rough idea what kinds of options they could offer based on just a scenario?
My situation is this: approx £40k in debt, one wage of £1300pcm coming in. Based on rent and council tax totalling £600, I can afford to pay £300 a month back.
