letter off synergie re costs

[scaredkez]

thought i would let you know i have received a breakdown of costs from synergi nothing else that i have requested, they have stated that to date the work carried out by themselves is £3670.50 and are willing to write that off in lieu of the £1586.00 that i paid as iva upfront fees, it is unbelievable they charged me 104.50 to telephone and say that the iva had been adjourned, they have charged 446.50 for the file being passed over from one team to another, ip charged 305.50 for first review of proposal, 9.50 per phone call to me, 190 for final ammendments sent in post the list goes on and then he writes and asks

i raise an invoice for 1056.92 inc of vat to cover a proportion of my time costs i will then write off the remainder of my time costs and proceed to close my file, please signify your agreement to this course of action by signing and returning the enclosed copy of this letter. if a response is not received within 28 days i will assume that you have no objections, by returning this letter you acknowledge that i have discharged all my professional duties in connection with this matter and waive any claim that you may have against me or synergi partners ltd

i have dug out the engagement letter and i am unsure as i think i haven't understood it properly re fees if anyone can help me incase its not worth me persuing any further: sorry its a long post

our fees are approved by your creditors as part of the proposal and are deducted from your monthly contribution. our fees are calculated on the basis of time spent at hourly rates dependant upon the level of experience of the individual, our current rates are shown below
ip 235 p/h, director 200 p/h, manager 175 p/h, sen administrator 140 p/h, administrator 95 p/h, assistant administrator 50 p/h.
a fee will be charged for the IP's role as intended nominee and nominee and seperately for their role as supervisor. the intended nominee and nominees fee will be fixed at 4250 in respect of your joint proposals plus vat. the fee will cover the work undertaken by synergie in relation to the preparation of the proposal leading to its first consideration by creditors should you withdraw your instruction for the intended nominee or nominee to act for you at any time we will be entitled to deduct our time costs incurred to date from any monies held on account.

i don't know if they have got me there but my argument was the time taken to get to creditors meeting from 10/08/06 to 14/12/06 and i hadn't understood that properly as where they ask for the fees up front is in a seperate letter, which goes the sooner you return the letter of engagement and two cheques for 533 each made payable to c stirland for your first and 2nd paymnets the sooner we can start to help you a s/o will be sent later to enable you to make remaining payments , this monthly payment is calculated on the information shown in the questionnairre supplied to us , please note this figure may change as we review your file and any additional information we receive.
please help
kerri

[MelanieGiles]

Wow - those fees are very high. I do not think that a nominee's fee of £4,250 would be acceptable to your creditors - I wonder if that is why the proposals were rejected?

You will need to check all of the paperwork provided by the IP to see whether they are entitled to keep your money. I suspect that they are, unfortunately.

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

[scaredkez]

melanie, do you think it is worth me trying to propose an iva again with another company i am currently doing a DMP with myvesta, which is only just up and running, but i know others i have spoken to said they would have only put my proposal in at 450 per month not the 500 as synergi did then NR wanted to pump it up to 618 i can afford the 450, ok it will be tight as i would expect and i am currently paying that out now with NR and the DMp anyway, there is nothing else in any of the paperwork re fees, they still haven't sent paperwork or copy of chairmans report yet, and their 7 days are up on thursday or does this letter constitute a reply off them even though it doesn't cover what i had asked in mine.
is it worth me writing to their governing body as i said i would do in my letter as i wasn't happy with the length of time taken to get to creditors meeting even when i returned everything promptly and they had everything by sept but didn't draft a proposal up til nov as they had a back log
thanks for your advice melanie
kerri

[freelili]

Hi Kerri

I am sorry you are having such a stressful letter day, its the last thing you need right now.

I may be wrong but it might be a little diffucult for Melaniw to publically slate this synergi company. It seems appauling that they can write to you like this, with these ridiculas charges.

I wouldnt waste any more time Kez complain. Enclose copies of the letter and everything you have. Take one day at a time now, there will be a way forward.

Good luck

LILY

[scaredkez]

hi lily , i know i don't want to put melanie in a predicament just any advice would be grateful, perhaps if the ips fees were lower then maybe they might look at an other iva proposal, grasping at straws again, just looking at the proposal again it states that as nominee he will be paid £3k plus vat then as supervisor 900 per year plus vat, i wish you could see this breakdown of costs the phone call for telling me it was adjourned cost me 104.50 then a further 66.50 to phone me and ask if i would agree to modifications then 161.50 to adjourn meeting/prepare meeting docs and e-mail me the modifications i could have travelled there cheaper and picked them up, just trying to work out what £3k plus vat is does it equate to 4250, i want to complain but don't want to look silly if its my own fault for not reading the paperwork properly and re reading it, so wish i had shopped around beforehand
kerri

[freelili]

I know you dont chuck

Looking at it as an outsider, I think you can read between the lines of Melanies post. 'Wow and I doubt if.' We wouldnt be expected to know anything about charges, so what have you got to lose? It costs nothing to complain and find out. If they are found to have acted responsibly and reasonably and have a claim for these charges then OK. I complained about my council, took it too the obudsman and won, all I had was an instrint that what they were trying to do was wrong. It must be exhausting for you all this and I really feel for you

LILY

[Dominic]

They charged £66.50 to phone you????? where were they phoning from, New York? Johannesburg? Frankfurt? Mumbai?

[Skippy]

You definately need to complain Kerri - they have treated you really badly and caused you a lot of stress. I seem to remember them being on Watchdog and screwing a fortune from a a man who had a brain injury. It only came to light when his sister intervened.

As Lily says, it costs nothing to complain. These companies can take advantage of us when we are vulnerable and they know it.

Three down, fifty seven to go until freedom!

[MelanieGiles]

Kerri

If you feel that you have been let down, and the company who proposed the IVA for you did not do their job properly and are not responding properly to your requests for information, then you should ask the IP's licencing body to assist. This does not necessarily mean that you have to make a formal complaint, but the regulatory bodies are there for one reason - to ensure that members act to proper and stipulated guidelines. If I were you I would now get them involved, for your own peace of mind.

With regards to the re-presentation of an IVA, can you confirm the following for me.

1 How much do you owe - please send a list of all individual creditors and the amounts.
2 Confirmation of the amount that you feel you can pay each month.

I will then be able to advise you whether it is worth representing the proposals.

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

[coco]

Hi Kez,

During my proposal NR stated that the IVA fees were to be capped no were near the figure you have stated and we had to raised the extra diviend and Synergi agreed but this is over the full term so it does seem excessive for only a few months work.

I really hope you can do another IVA with a better company unfortunatley for me i am stuck with them for another 4.5 years




51 payments to go

[neverending]

Your case is appalling and it would be good to see how you get on complaining to the regulatory body.

[scaredkez]

tomorrow i am composing the letter, sorry melanie haven't got back to you with figures but remembered what you said about BH who rejected me any way loan less than 12 months thanks for the support everyone if i could get my scanner to work i would post the breakdown costs for all and sundry to see working on it
kerri

[MAY2006]

Hi Kerri
I don't know if this will help, but this is taken from my final statement of my completed IVA.
Ours was full and final settlement IVA.
Staff Charge Out Rates per hour
Partner £345.00
Manager 1 £275.00
Manager 2 £205.00
Senior £121.00
Admin staff £63.00

My Supervisor fees were £2000.00, my nominee fees were £2500.00, registration of IVA with DETI was £70.00. Misc nominee expenses were £241.00 all plus VAT.
As I have previously posted mine took nearly 7 months to set up from start to finish, it involved two meetings with two of the staff from Grant Thornton they flew over to meet us. I can't tell you have many phone calls they made in response to my panic attacks.
Their payment was taken from the lump sum we had raised for the IVA (this sat in a bank account in our name that they opened for us this earned £800.00 interest) and they did not get one penny until the IVA was approved and final settlements made to all creditors.
You need to get angry and report these robbing b*s*a*ds to any regulatory body that will listen.
They need their license to practice revoking.

[MelanieGiles]

Hi May2006

I'm just curious that, if the Grant Thornton staff flew over to see you from Belfast, I assume that you live in either England or Wales? If so, why is your IVA registered with the DETI, which is a Northern Ireland government department.

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

[MAY2006]

Hi Melanie
Yes they did fly over as I do live in England. I took that info from the list of expenses on my final statement to creditors, did'nt realise it meant it was Northern Ireland. It maybe to typing error if they are used to registering things with DETI, I will check with them. On my chairmans report it states my IVA was registered in my local court and its also on the UK insolvensey service website, still, I had to call GT yesterday to get them to send another copy of the final report to this organisation as they are stating that they have not received it. I have had mine since 10th June last year.
If they have registered it in Northern Ireland could that cause me a problem?