www.iva.co.uk

Hi,
We're currently having an IVA set up at the moment. We're with churchwood finance, and before they can go any further, they're demanding a payment of £550. Does this seem normal?? They said this is the only payment they get and once the iva is up and running, we'll have a monthly payment which doesn't include any fees. I don't think they're doing anything until they get the payment. When I questioned this, I was told this was Churchwood's policy, & by paying fees up front my monthly payment is less.

Your monthly payment should be governed only by what you can afford and should have nothing to do with any upfront fees.

If you are happy to pay an upfront fee then go for it, but there are many firms out there who won't charge an upfront fee, and it never hurts to speak to 2 or 3 providers before you plunge in headfirst, so to speak.

Accordingly, visit www.iva.com and have a look around there at reviews etc.

Good luck and regards.

As Size5 says, you can go directly to IP firms but companies such as Churchwood can provide a valuable service by giving the IP a packaged file. This does speed the process up but the decision is yours as to whether you feel they have earned the fee.

Make sure you ask them what will happen to the payment in the event that the IVA is not accepted.

i suspect there was a good chance of that happening with total fees of £550.

I know these companies can save a bit of work for an IP firm but do Ip's actually encourage people to find clients for them??

hi there im thinking of taking a iva out with churchwood,they said that i would have to pay £399 up front for 1st payment,then after that it would be £220 a month,how have you found dealing with them,im ment to be meeting there ip next week.

As stated in your previous thread, you will be expected to pay out money upfront. You can do an IVA without having to do this.

Visit the link I posted in the other thread and give one or two IP's a ring from there.

Very few companies charge up-front fees now, but the work they carry out on behalf of the client is very valuable to an IP - investigatory work that they and their staff would have had to carry out anyway - and the IP will normally have an agreement in place to pay these companies out of the fund created by the contributions.

The benefit can be that the intiial company may be local and able to provide a face-to-face service not always possible for the IPs firm and they may be able to deal with the matter more quickly than the IPs firm. They also provide a 'sign-posting' filtering service that reduces the amount of time IPs firms take talking to people they are unable to help, freeing them up to dealing with people proposing IVAs.

But as I said,if you go through one of these introducers you wont have a chance to get a feel for an Insolvency firm and could end up stuck with a company that doesnt get good reviews.

Find out from churchwood what company they intend to pass you on to,so you can at least check out their reviews on www.iva.com

Paul