Completed IVA - PPI Help

[cliffman]

Hi All

Would really be grateful for some assistance on this stressful matter!

Both myself and wife made our last IVA payment last August and in February Harrington Brooks confirmed the IVA is complete.

During the IVA we were asked to claim back via Richardson Mail solicitors "PPI Compensation" It turns out I was awarded £1988.96 and my wife £768.96. We have never seen this money.

I emailed Richardson's when I found out the compensation had been awarded to be told that although the IVA is complete any outstanding payments will have to be paid into the closed IVA, so I thought fair enough! (would have been nice to have the money)

This morning both myself and wife receive invoices totalling (combined) fees of £885.05 for professional services in respect of claiming the funds back as Harrington Brooks have been unable to recover costs.

Surely if the banks have awarded compensation payments they are liable for covering the costs!

I've just emailed Richardson's complaining and explaining we have never received any funds therefore we both feel the "costs" should be paid for by Harrington Brooks. Now we have to wait over the weekend to see what happens.

Has anyone else experienced anything like this or can you offer any assistance/guidance?

Hope this makes sense & many thanks in advance

Cliffman & Wife!

[Michael Peoples]

Get on to Harrington Brooks and the solicitors and tell them where to go. If the banks have claimed offset and left the reclaim firm out of pocket that is not your problem.

If you receive any further correspondence from either of these firms threaten them with their regulatory bodies as this is almost extortion!

[cliffman]

Thank you Michael, will do that on Monday

[jeffw]

I had the same problem where Belmont Thornton claimed PPI from Barclays, I did as instructed by Blair Endersby in claiming PPI.
My IVA was transferred to Grant Thornton and I was left with the bill for £1200 which Belmont Thornton sold on to Daniel Silverman, GT did not want to know !
I had a second bill off Belmont Thornton for £250 for another Barclays PPI claim which GT paid.
Also both PPI refunds were offset by Barclays against the debt.

[techno1029]

I too may be just about to have this problem!!! I finished IVA with F&F last year.Had to sign loads of forms for PPI claims before I could get comp.cert. A PPI claim was found and about £1800 was credited to my IVA. I actually recieved a few hundred back in interest to!!!! At no point has any mention of fees been mentioned for EIF who were my IPs claim company. I recieved my comp cert. and thought that was it. However I have just has a letter from one of my original creditors stating there are 2 more PPI claims due and a substantial amount is payable to my IVA company. My question is will I be liable for the fees even though I have had no control over the funds??..This is worrying the hell out of me that I will soon again be having people after me for money after all the stress I had with IVA etc!!!!!

[Jamie.73]

Interesting post with regards to set off. Tad confused. I work with a legal firm completing a similar service for insolvency practitioner as CMCs and in most circumstances set off can be fought thus preventing such an issue. To date we have only had 2.2% of claims set off and these were ignored as the values did not warrant the time to allow the funds to enter the IVA. Seems to me CMCs are jumping in to the more complex niche area of PPI within insolvency and letting down IPs and debtor clients.

[Jamie.73]

Excuse the poor typing posted via mobile

[Michael Peoples]

Cliffman.
I hope you managed to get this resolved and I must apologise to Harrington Brooks as my words were unprofessional. I should have advised you to speak to HB and their solicitors in case there was a genuine mistake and only if you receive no satisfaction should you go to their regulators.

[David Rankin]

Cliffman, I am one of the Insolvency Practitioners at Harrington Brooks and your post was brought to my attention late last night. I am currently trying to establish your identity with Richardson Mail in order that we may investigate this properly to discover what has happened here. If the banks have applied offset then that is unfortunately something that both Richardson Mail and ourselves do have to take on the chin although we would always dispute their right to set-off. I do not actually know at the moment if that is what has happened in this case, as I say I need to establish your identity so that I can discover the full facts. Unfortunately from your point of view any PPI reclaims do fall into the IVA even if the IVA has been closed but you should never be asked to pay costs. Something has obviously gone wrong somewhere and I will resolve this and write to you as soon as I have all the information I need.

I am hoping that Richardson Mail will be able to identify you from the amount of the invoice issued or from your email that you sent to them on Saturday. In the meantime if you were prepared to post our Harrington Brooks reference number of your IVA on here I can obviously use that. That number cannot be used by anyone else other than an HB employee to identify you as it purely a number to identify you on our system but I appreciate you may be reluctant to post it. Alternatively you can contact me via our email address ivasupport@debtfree.co.uk. I don't think I am allowed to post my personal email address on here (for obvious reasons I guess!) but if you mark your email for my attention and refer to this exchange it will be passed to me.

I would like to take the opportunity thank Michael Peoples for his apology this morning too. Anyone with a dispute or query on their IVA should always seek to speak with or contact their Insolvency Practitioner in the first instance to resolve any issues.

[Adam Davies]

Hi

Cliffman if you want to contact me using the details below I can pass your details onto David

Regards

[MelanieGiles]

It is a fact that the costs of pursuing PPI claims are costs of the estate which benefits from such. So if you are left out of pocket, your IP should indemnify you for those costs. Do check the small print of the PPI agreement you entered into, as reputable claims management companies engaged by IPs should agree to waive their costs in the event of set-off. Knowing David Rankin, I am sure he will get this sorted out for you in a jiffy.

[cliffman]

Thank you all for your replies. Richardsons have confirmed by email the invoices have been sent to us in error and to ignore them. As the compensation is being credited to the Iva Harrington Brooks are responsible for charges ( a big relief)

David, I believe I have your email address from previous correspondence, I will forward the information onto you either tomorrow or Thursday for investigation.

[MelanieGiles]

All is well that ends well then - but glad to see that the forum has played a small part in getting this resolved for you cliffman.

[cliffman]

David

Email with all details sent to "Ivasupport@debtfree.co.uk"

Cliffman

[Alimay]

Wow, am I glad to see this post. I too am with HB and David Rankin is my IP. So nice to see you on here David, your office staff do like to hide you away - how did you break out!

I too had a successful PPI claim done by Richardson Mail and in May 2012 last year we had a letter from Richardson stating the amount from British Credit Trust would be sent to HB. This cheque (to HB or Richardson) was never sent and we only found this out when we had our annual review and the payment from BCT did not show up as having been paid in.

I chased Richardson Mail as to why the cheque had not been sent and they stated that BCT now wanted to offset the amount against the debt and we have to sign a letter agreeing to this - letter in the post apparently but not yet received.

Having read a few horror stories on the forum I telephoned HB and asked if they could speak to BCT and get them to just send a cheque to go into the pot and was told that offsetting was common and not to worry and HB were not going to follow this up!

Reading the replies above, surely it would be better for HB and Richardson to get the cheque from BCT and not offset so that fees for Richardson could be paid etc etc?

David, if you read this and want to look into this before offsetting occurs, my number with you is 22124.