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Hi, I am in month 54 of my IVA and have issued my valuation and redemption documents, but am unsure if both my wife - who also has an IVA - and I both qualify for the £5,000 limit on equity or it's £5,000 between us both? I think we have around £7,500 equity between us i.e. £3,750 each so it's important to know the rules as my IP won't tell us!!

Thanks for any help you can provide.

As ever you would have to check the wording of your own proposal and chairmans report, but in the vast majority of cases it should be £5k each.

Regards.

In most cases it is the equity available in a remortgage at a maximum of 85% loan to value that is counted so if you have £15k equity between you based on a sale then highly uinlikely an extension would be needed. However as Mike says you need to check your proposal and perhaps ask the IP to explain everything in simple terms.

Hi Chrisdc99,
We too are having the same problem and have now had to make an official complaint.
Which company are you with?

It should be £5000 each ( the IVA's are, after all, individual even if interlocking). However some could be written differently, and some IP's interpret the usual wording differently.

We were told by our IP that its £5000 each. As its in both 'individual' reports you therefore would each need £5000 equity.

We with Payplan, who have now just confirmed that, using 100% LTV on our mortgage there is just over £12,000 equity i.e. £6,000 each so we have to try and release. Using 85% LTV gives £8,000 equity between us i.e. £4,000 each and so below the limit. This doesn't seem right to me.

Go back and check what your original chairmans report stated.

Get it writing from Payplan and the IP. You can then consider legal advice if you disagree with their interpretation of the rules but hopefully it would not come to that.

Question it with pay plan ,they told me I had to remortgage ,I rang and told them I thought they where wrong and gave them the figures working out the equity which was below £5k after a few minutes on hold they returned to tell me they agreed with me and I didn't have to remortgage ,I just wonder how many people remortgage who shouldn't really have to .

I have just asked my IP the exact same question (anything to try and get out of another year!) and this is their reply:

"It is based on the total amount for example it was a sole IVA (just with yourself for an example) and the mortgage was in joint names you are correct in saying that your share would be £2,565.00 however as it a joint IVA it is overall so for example it isn’t £5,000 equity for a sole IVA and £10,000 equity for a joint IVA it is £5,000 either way, I understand why you would query this and I am happy to answer any questions in relation to this to clarify the position."

ours is an interlocking IVA, we have £5131 equity in our property according to a desktop valuation, so they have agreed we can get an independent valuation done.

There is no such thing as a joint IVA so go back to your IP. You should consider legal advice as the cost would be less than an extension and if your IP is wrong you could ask them to pay for it.You need to read carefully the wording in your IVAs.

Hi guys, and first of all thank you for the advice and help provided. Just heard from Payplan and now really confused. They agreed house valuation of £125,000 and agreed 85% of this would be £106,250 - outstanding mortgage is £108,984 so no equity right? Wrong! They say there is £5,468 to release between my wife and myself so I need to release £2,734. Can anyone see where these amounts come from as I really don't want to remortgage or extend if at all possible. Thanks again.

Ask them for a detailed breakdown and check your proposal. Most saynot to bother for leless than 5k anyway. It's hard to second guess where figures come from!

As said -- ask for a detailed explanation of where they are getting the figures from.