www.iva.co.uk

After much grumbling, i now have some progress and i received a letter informing me that my IVA will finish in either 4 months or 11 months depending on the final queries to creditors so that is really good news for me - started IVA January 2012 and will have paid 100p and the final queries are expected to be returned by the end of April. With the letter, i received an estimated outcome statement with the 2 scenarios and at the bottom a footnote about the implementation costs. I will have implementation costs of 732 to pay which include:
Bordereau fee - 150
Land registry fee - 50
Land registry search fee - 11
Courier fee - 80
Registration fee -15
***Case management fee - 200
Legal fee - 1.06
Storage fee - 75
***software maintenance - 150

I understand most of the above but i wonder if anyone can tell me about the 2 i have highlighted - the case management fee in particular - why would there be an extra case management fee, should this not be included in the normal fees? (i have separate fees listed elsewhere for ppi fees and also for professional fees to do in-depth credit checks so it is not for this)
I am also wondering about the software maintenance fee - i had assumed that this would be a category 2 disbursement which is expressly excluded from my IVA as written in my chairmans report modifications.
I would appreciate any feedback or if anyone can shed any light on this for me?
Thank you for all your help as always

Are you with Kingsgate by any chance?

Yes Clare i am with Kingsgate.

I definitely think that you need to query the Case Management Fee, Courier Fee, Storage Fee (storage for what!) and the software maintenance. All of these costs would have needed to be specifically approved by your creditors.

I requested information on the costs levied above and received a response today.

Firstly, they had told me that PPI claims needed to be investigated, told me which company would be in touch and that any fees would be taken from any PPI recovered. I explained that i was certain there was no PPI to claim but they said it needed to be investigated. I noticed on my estimated outcome that a charge had been added to my payment for 170 for PPI investigation - i questioned this and they have now said that as there were no realisations that this has been refunded to me.

The courier fee was another one that i questioned as was told this was the charge for the courrier to collect documents from me at the outset of my IVA but as this service was not used for my case, this has also been refunded and they apologised for the administrative error.

The other questions were answered as follows:

Storage Fee – This is a fee paid to a third party for off site storage of your file and documents, this also covers retrieval of such documents as and when necessary and is a one of payment on all cases.

Case Management Fee – Is a one off fee paid to a third party for the software required to run your case.

Software Maintenance Fee – Is a monthly fee paid to a third party to maintain the software required to run your case.

Do these seem acceptable charges or should i request an invoice for each one of these services?

The good news is that i have 250 pounds less to pay into my IVA due to me questioning their accounts - happy about that but a little disappointed that as a client i have to question their charges - pays to read everything very carefully!

Thank you for your help and advice as always

I won't comment as to whether I think those costs are reasonable, as it is probably not my place to - however these costs should have been highlighted within your IVA proposal and specifically agreed at that time by yourself and your creditors. If this happened, then the costs must have been acceptable to all parties - as the costs would need the specific agreement of your creditors.

The issue of what are referred to as "Category 2 costs" is one of the areas that creditors and regulators are particularly hot on at the moment.

Thank you Melanie - interesting, i looked again at the original proposal and although they were not specifically highlighted, there was an implementation cost of 574 listed on the proposal but it was not broken down into what it was expected to be for. I suppose the fact that i signed the proposal meant that i agreed with it without knowing what the actual implementation costs were for.
I think that i will still ask for a copy of the invoices for those - presumably as i am paying them directly that i am entitled to see the invoices for services provided by third parties relating to my case.

I am surprised that creditors would allow such a high cost, without proper explanation. No harm in you now asking for a more detailed breakdown, however.