Nervous and needing reassurance

[facingittogether]

night fi!

get a good nights sleep! you have made positive forward steps and yes one day, hopefully not too far from now you will be raving how your life has turned around and the weight lifted!

sleep tight

love barb x

[Viki.W]

Hey fifilebonbon, to answer your question from earlier, I had a £6000 overdraft on the business account and quite often went over that. This showed in the bank statements that I provided. Good luck and keep posting. Have a great night's sleep. X

[David Mond]

Melanie SIP 3 was updated last year and took away the provision of a face to face meeting. This was at the instigation of the Insolvency Practitioners Council (I believe a bad step) ClearDebt still offer a face to face meeting with its network of 136 Insolvency Practitioners up and down the country so that usually a debtor can see someone locally. A Trading IVA can we difficult but not impossible and can run alongside a consumer debt one by the other partner if necesaary. Talk to your IP. Visit www.iva.com for a list of reviews on suitable IP's. Good luck.

[MelanieGiles]

David

I am well aware that SIP 3 was updated last year - but not for trading individuals where a meeting in person shoud always be conducted by themselves or an experienced member of his/her staff - paragraph 3.1 applies.

[David Mond]

Melanie - I stand corrected.

[fifilebonbon]

Hi there - continuing on with my need for reassurance (Melanie I will be in touch but until I have all the necessary paperwork from the accountant which he is pulling together for us, I will hang fire so that I can make sure I have all the accurate I and E figures), I have another question for all you lovely people out there. If in opening new business and personal bank accounts we have a sum of money (which a family member will give us) to put into these accounts as opening balances and cash flow (because obviously there will be no overdraft facility), will these be affected by the iva? Thanks for your help! Fi

[MelanieGiles]

Not at all - in fact your family member will become a creditor if that money is treated as a loan. How much money are you referring to?

[fifilebonbon]

Hi Melanie! It would probably be about £5,000 just to act as a cash flow buffer and opening balance on new accounts to ensure that we are not sailing incredibly close to the wind whilst the IVA was being arranged. We would probably want to see it as a loan but the family member would probably either see it as a gift or something that we could repay as and when we were in a position to repay it so that it wouldnt be something that we would include within the IVA....again when we have all our paperwork I would really like to get together with you (or I guess a member of your staff??) face to face to go through everything and make sure we have dotted all the i's so to speak before we move forward. My husband and I will need a lot of hand holding because we would be determined to make this a new start, clean slate with new bank accounts and a managable debt programme and the chance to avoid ever getting into this kind of situation ever again!
Thanks! Fi

[MelanieGiles]

There is no problem with an injection of capital by way of a third party contribution to your business, as it is a good way to start an IVA if you have something behind you.

You are taking a very sensible attitude by getting all of your paperwork ready before approaching a professional directly, as the advice you get in return will be far more meaningful. Do continue to post on the forum if you have any other queries.

[fifilebonbon]

Thank you so much for your prompt and heart warming responses Melanie! There is no doubt that I will continue to use this really invaluable forum! And I look forward to a meeting with you in due course!
Regards, Fi

[fifilebonbon]

Hi me again! Another question. Having given a synopsis of our situation do you think that an IVA is actually the right debt solution to our problem? When we spoke to the Debt Advice Trust and gave them our I and E figures an IVA is what they advised (I must point out that details were only given for our personal debt and expenditure as they told me they do not handle business debt, although I later found out that our debt would be handled under one umbrella since my husband was a sole trader). However my father in law is badgering us to call CCCS. I have looked on their website and they dont seem to do anything different to the Debt Advice Trust. Can anyone elaborate how their service would differ and are we likely to be given other debt solution advice? Melanie I love your personal touch advice and would be really keen to utilise your services - would your services differ to anything that the CCCS would offer? As you know, I am still finalising paperwork and figures but our combined personal and business (sole trader) debt is approx £138,000 and we would probably be looking at repayment figures of around £650 a month. Thanks for your valuable input guys!
Fi

[MelanieGiles]

Those are questions which cannot, and should not, be answered in open forum. In order to receive proper advice about your options, you will need to meet with an insolvency practitioner on a face to face basis to have pretty detailed discussions on your current financial situation and future.

I cannot compare my services to any other practitioners, as I do not know how other firms operate, and it would be very wrong of me to comment further on that issue. What you do need to do is select someone who is used to dealing with self-employed cases, and run a mile from anyone who tells you that this can be done over the phone.

[fifilebonbon]

Thanks for your comments Melanie - I appreciate that you are limited to what you can say on this topic and in open forum. I suppose I just wanted to know if the CCCS were famed for offering alternative solutions to those of say the Debt Advice Trust or Insolvency Practitioners in general. My father in law was getting quite cross that we had not phoned them but my husband was trying to explain that we had spoken to other relevant people and charity organisations and that from what we have read on their website, the advice we have been getting would not largely differ to what the CCCS would potentially have to say on the subject. Presumably if we approached the CCCS we would need to meet with one of the IPs anyway - so from my perspective back to my father in law - whats the difference between one of their IPs and somebody that we would choose to handle our situation?

[kallis3]

You should be offered the same alternatives, no matter which company or individual IP you speak to. Debt Management, IVA or Bankruptcy. These will be explained to you, you are asked if you understand them, and you will discuss between you and the IP (or whoever) which is the right way for you.

I think if you are self employed, you have to do a face to face meeting, and this would also be the same, regardless of who you approached.

At the end of the day, it is down to personal preference. My IVA is with Payplan, and I have had no problems with them at all.

You could do worse than give Melanie a ring. She comes highly recommended by posters on here who have used her services.

[MelanieGiles]

Take my advice and speak to an insolvency practitioner directly. The CCCS employ one and I have met her. I cannot comment on their ability to deal with self-employed cases, you should make your own enquiries in this regard.