www.iva.co.uk

Hi all, I was rather hoping someone could give me some advice. I have just had a call from my IP who have advised me that bankruptcy is my only realistic option left, even though I have only 5 months left of a 5 year agreement. When we started the IVA (my wife and I started agreements at the same time) we were married with no children and both working full time. We now have two children aged 4 and 3 and I was made redundant from MFI when they went out of business in 2008. So we are now living on one part time wage and receive no benefits other than family tax credit of £180 per month. Under the terms of our agreements we were expected to raise £15,000 by way of re-mortgage in the final year, but as it stands, we can hardly afford the mortgage we have, let alone convince anyone to lend us more! 

David and Co were our original IP, and kind of assured us that they had financial lenders that would be able to assist in the final year. They went out of business and we were then handled by Synergy Partners...who also went out of business. So now we are with Cleardebt who are telling us we need to go bankrupt. We have always let our IP know our situation and feel terribly let down as they should have known what the outcome was likely to be some time ago.

Does anyone know what options there are normally available at this stage of an IVA with a situation such as ours? Any advice would be very welcome as it looks likely we will now lose everything!  

Size 5 posts on forum and may pick up on this for you.
With only 5 months to go surely the best option isn't bankruptcy? Do you mind if I ask if your IVA payments are up to date?

Payments are fully up to date with one exception. Apparently my payments should
have increased by £100 per month 18 months ago, however, this was only recently
brought to my attention. The reason for the increase was because of an HP agreement
should have finished at the end of year three, however, I've never had an HP agreement
and this was a mistake on their part, although I should have read the agreement more carefully!
Other than that however, which I was assured was no big deal by my IP just a few
months ago, our agreements are complete. We were even offered a 6 month break which
we didn't take up because we wanted to keep it to the original 5 years. When I suggested
a creditors meeting to ask for a 12 month extension, paying a much higher amount,
I was effectively told that my creditors wouldn't agree to it so no point in asking...I disagree!

Hi
It seems very harsh and would be surprised if you are made bankrupt. I would think that a one year exstension to your IVA would be more sensible. Hopefully Mike from Cleardebt will pick this thread up
Regards

We'll keep this bumped up and hopefully Mike will pick up on this as a lot of us are in the same situation and a one year extension will be on the cards x

I was with Neville Eckley when I started and they closed my office, then they moved my account to another office,
then they sold out to Synergy and I was with them to the end.
I always wanted to keep the house out of the equation and stated that at the start, although with so
many changes down the line I had to keep repeating myself !
Anyway, althogh my wife and I were both fortunately in jobs and kept paying, like yourselves, we did manage to
get our house valued at year 5. My difference was it was an IVA in my name only >Is yours ? Because when they valued the house they did some clever
figure crunching and split the value in two. As my wife wasnt in the IVA, but was adding to the income every month we were allowed to extnd the term
for another year. DONT GO BR AND DONT GIVE UP ! I managed it over 6 years and its the best thing I ever did. Good Luck

Hi pwsands,
I agree with Andy Davie above, most definitely seems harsh.
I have attached a link below that will allow you to check that you are claiming all the benefits you are entitled to as what you stated you are receiving seems quite low.
Thought it may be worth a look.
Take Care
http://www.turn2us.org.uk/benefits_search.aspx

I cannot identify you from your forum name, so if you wish to e mail me directly then I will be happy to have a look at this for you. My details are in the experts section on the left.

Regards.

This would appear to be a case where a variation to creditors is the most sensible solution rather than threats of bankruptcy. I am sure that Mike will be able to sort something more reasonable for you than that already mentioned by his colleagues.

they will just arrange a variation which will probably mean you paying for a further year

Thanks so much for your replies and comments. I have since soken to Adrienne
at ClearDebt and hopefully we can find a way to resolve this. It seems to me that
my IVA was badly managed by David and Co originally and a woefull lack of
comunication by the subsequent practitioners, Synergy, have led me to where I am now.
ClearDebt so far have been the only company that have communicated to me properly
what my situation is, even though I have kept the previous practitioners aware
of my declining situation/income all the way through. The final straw was being
made redundant by MFI in year 3.

Adrienne has given me some breathing space before reporting to creditors, in order
to look at ways of raising my income and therefore propose a years extension paying
significantly more into my agreement than I currently do. I ahd a job interview this
morning which looks hopeful and who knows, we may just get there!

This is the first time I've shared my problems and feel the better for it, thankyou.

Good luck with the interview and I hope you get your IVA sorted soon. x