My husband and I are in our 5th year of an IVA, which was extended to an extra year a while ago due to funds available. We are with Payplan and have paid religiously every month even though we have not had enough money to live. We have a 9 year old son to look after. My question is about our recent cost of living pay rise. We both work for local government, so pay rises are negotiated. We have had a pay freeze for about five years and this year was the first year we have received anything. We got 2.2% over 2 years, which equates to about £20 per month if we are lucky. We sent payslips in recently and I told Payplan about the pay rise, but have now been contacted as they want a review. I was under the impression that cost of living pay rises didn't go into the IVA? We have paid extra in when my husband has had to work ovrrtime in the past and nearly all the PPI money we got back went to Payplan, although the majority went to Equity in Finance, Payplan's sister company who supposedly did all the work! That is a bit of a joke as well, as we completed all the paperwork, they just sent it off. Some of our creditors wouldn't deal with a third party and came direct to us anyway! Can they keep taking money off us like this. I thought the IVA was supposed to help us, but it seems to have made things worse. I thought that we would only increase our payments when things finished, like loans and CSA, which my husband has had to pay for 20 years? Our payments have increased despite not having any surplus. Please can you help?
Do the review and allocate the extra money against the things that have increased. It should not be difficult to justify keeping the extra income as regardless what anyone says prices have gone up.
When you fill out your annual review list your increased income but also increase any living expenses that have gone up. You should find that your surplus remains very much he same and hence your payments do no increase
