www.iva.co.uk

I need some advice on the following with my IVA : I have just made up the figures to keep it simple.

The company make my proposals for an iva (it is obviously based on my financial circumstances at the time). It is protocol compliant, contains the overtime clause, it is based on annual review etc etc. My income is made up of basic pay and allowances.

My IVA proposals:

10 payments at £20 per month
20 payments at £30 per month
20 payments at £40 per month
10 payments at£50 per month.

Payment increase is based on expected progression of pay.Clearance of mortgage arrears etc There is a minimum dividend.

Over the five years my circumstances change, I am paid more than expected (overtime etc) to start with and capitalise my mortgage arrears freeing up extra money.

As it progresses my mortgage payments increase, general expenditure increases, my employer withdraws some allowances etc

I end up making 10 payments at £50 per month
20 payments at £40 per month
10 payments at £40 per month
10 payments at £30 per month
10 payments at £40 per month

They are now extending my IVA because they say I didn’t always,make the full monthly payments that were in my 'original' proposals and where these payments were short have to be ‘made up’. They ‘obviously’ don’t count the fact that at the beginning I paid much more because this would have been ‘extra’ to pay in anyway.

The minimum dividend is still met with what I have paid in so far.

I thought I paid in as much as I could based on my annual income and expenditure and in 5 years I would be debt free. Now I have a bigger mortgage as a result of capitalising the arrears and wont be debt free until year 7 !!!

Is this right ???

Any additional money paid in over and above your agreed monthly payments is offset from the original total of your debt. Monthly payments at the agreed amounts throughout your IVA go towards the original minimum dividend and therefore if payments have not been met each month at the agreed amount then further payments may be necessary to reach the minimum dividend.

I am a little bit miffed now having received a letter today. Right up until two weeks ago I was expecting my IVA to end shortly after christmas (march). It was extended to cover some missed payments (which I expected). I queried why the missed payments that were added on to the end came to slightly more than the missed payments. Now that it has been looked into I am extremely shocked to discover at this late stage that it has been wrongly calculated throughout the IVA and in order to put it right I will need to extend it by some 18 months and increase my payment by £120.00 on top. I simply dont have the money.

Greedfighter. you are obviously a fairly placid person. "Miffed" - I would be LIVID. Given the figures you posted, someone has dropped a huge clanger. Having been in an IVA myself, and many others on this forum, we can expect, through experience of keeping our eye on the ball, to be slightly out. But 18 months surely is an error OR, the inference of your post implies your IP has wrongly calculated your payment. In which case I would contact them to clear this mess up.

However, given further thought, your IP is expected to realise as big a dividend as is possible. I have never heard of a minimum dividend because things fluctuate so much. Having said all that - an 18 month increase of much higher payments does sound most irregular. Again, I would contact your IP and challenge it.

My original post probably does my point injustice. Obviously my actual payments are a lot higher. Essentially when the proposals were done my pay was made up significantly of allowances. I was on notice to lose these at the time but was told if they go then my payments would reduce accordingly. About two years in I lost them and they were taken off my payments. What I was not aware of is the fact that I would have to then 'make this money' up at the end. Right up until last month all the correspondence indicated that my IVA would end four months later to cover 4 missed payments. It was only when I queried why the 4 payments were more than the 4 missed payments that they have now informed me I will have to make up the other reduced payments as well. I was so looking forward to the end I have even booked and paid the deposit for a holiday in August (out of some overtime) which I will now not be able to afford either.

Nevertheless greedfighter, I would, personally, still take your IP to task over this. It is clear a mishandling of your affairs. If you did not agree to this element of your IVA, and from your post, you didn't, then a problem has arison created by you IP. You should have been informed of this change some 2 and a 1/2 years ago. I fully understand your frustration. Could you say who the IP is?