Hi, I would just like some advice please. During the set up stage of my IVA one of my creditors (a friend that had lent me money) refused to sign the IVA proposal. He held the majority vote so without it I would have faced bankruptcy. During this really stressful time he pressured me to sign a separate agreement with him stating that once my IVA had finished I would repay his money. At the time I signed it as I just didn't know what else to do. I have no idea how I will repay this money at the end of my IVA and am so upset that he managed to bully me in to this, as I feel now I should have just gone bankrupt. Being in my IVA has made me feel finally in control of my finances but now the emotion and stress of it all has passed, I have realised I have stupidly signed this letter. What should I do?
Discuss this with your IP, who might have some insight. My thoughts are though that, as the debt is included in an IVA, and this was entered into after the bullied agreement, then, when the IVA concludes the debt will be written off and unenforceable. So the agreement you have been bullied into signing is null and void.
Personally I would wait until the IVA concludes then tell this "friend" to take a long walk off of a short pier. If they chose to go to court with this "agreement" they wouldn't have a leg to stand on ... in any event, IVA notwithstanding, an agreement signed under duress is void.
My opinions are merely that .. opinions based on experience. Always seek professional advice.
IVA Completed 23rd July 2013 .... C.C. 10th January 2014
I wonder if drawing up such an agreement would essentially turn your 'friend' into an unlicensed illegal money lender aka loanshark.
I'd say your friend if he wasn't happy with the proposal and had a majority vote should have proposed a modification. In the absence of this I doubt a court would uphold this
Worth bearing in mind though that it being unenforceable may not not your friend from trying to do so, by means fair or foul
If your IP does contact your friend I'd love to be a fly on the wall, I doubt the IP would be amused
I'm confused. In the original posting the OP said that his/her friend refused to sign the IVA proposal. Did he subsequently sign it then? After the signing of their "private" agreement? Or is that debt not included in the IVA? If the "private" agreement was signed after the IVA went through, then IMO both parties could find themselves in deep water. And if that creditor didn't sign the IVA agreement, then how is the OP in an IVA if his vote held the majority?
As I understand it all debts are bound by the IVA unless excluded from it. There are very few debts that are excluded from an IVA (debts secured against property, student loans, probably some others)
So unless the friend has got the debt excluded, not voting or lodging a claim has no effect(other than not getting any dividend). A creditor is bound by the IVA unless they can stop the IVA at the creditors meeting.
Hi, thank you so much for all the replies so far. I am very happily surprised and overwhelmed by all the support : )
To answer some of the queries above, he refused to vote yes for the IVA and both myself and the IVA company spoke with him several times to explain that the IVA was the only way that I could repay him ANY money at the moment as it was the IVA or bankruptcy : ( It then turned quite nasty and he said unless I signed an agreement he would not vote and he would sue me : ( It was a written letter that basically said I will repay money after the IVA has finished. No one witnessed it, only me and I had to post it back to him. Once he had the letter he then voted yes for the IVA. Ive got myself in to such a stupid situation but at the time I was very scared, confused and upset that I was even in the position of bankruptcy : (
We're here to offer advice as far as we can. What I would suggest is if you can have a word with your IP see what s/he suggests, you could always take advantage of some free legal advice some companies offer half hour free.
I would think the IVA supersedes the letter but I'm in no way qualified to make that judgement so do get some legal advice if you can for free. Maybe one of our professionals who post will have a few words for you later on.
IVA final payment left the bank on the 26th January 2013...looking forward to a debt free future.
Good advice from everyone. Legal advice is necessary. But in the good old fashion way, speaking my mind of course. It looks like blackmail to me!! Surely there is a law against this. Good luck x
Can you imagine the carnage if creditors were allowed to act in this way, we'd have the IVA and a dozen arrangements with creditors and probably more second IVAs when people struggle to cope !!
No creditor can be treated better than another and I doubt if this document would hold water. Effectively this creditor was bribed to vote yes and will benefit more than the other creditors who I doubt very much would have approved had they been aware.
font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial, Helvetica">quote:<hr height="1" noshade>Originally posted by Michael Peoples
No creditor can be treated better than another and I doubt if this document would hold water. Effectively this creditor was bribed to vote yes and will benefit more than the other creditors who I doubt very much would have approved had they been aware.
I don't think this comment was thought through at all, especially from an IVA expert. Why on earth would I bribe someone to vote yes to an IVA by paying them more money than I could afford. Perhaps you don't fully understand how distressing facing bankruptcy can be and the prospect of losing everything. You try to do the right thing and repay the monies that you borrowed, as there is an immense amount of guilt and embarrassment that you borrowed money in good faith and are now in a situation that means you have to let people down. So when someone is pressuring you to sign something and taking advantage of that situation, you don't think about it. You don't feel you have any choice. There was no bribery involved, just fear of losing everything and not knowing what else to do.
