www.iva.co.uk

Hi
About a year and half ago I finished paying off of my 5 Year (60 Months) IVA and I have still not received completion certificate.
The company I used for my IVA was Grant Thornton (now Aperture), they have now told me as from 1st of April 2016 my IVA will be extended by 12 more months because the equity in my house, which is a joint mortgage, can they do this???
Also in the middle of last year they instructed me they will claim back any PPI I have. My outstanding debt on my IVA was 21K and they already have claimed back my PPI’s to the value of 25K. I have just cancelled the direct debt that’s starts tomorrow because I legally don’t know where I stand.
My thought process of having an IVA was to agree with my creditors a 5 year payment plan and then the outstanding debt would be written off, I’m I totally wrong??? Any advice you have would be very helpful as I thought I put all the stress and bad debt behind me.
Thank you
A Macfarlane

Hi and welcome,

It is usual to try and release equity but that should have been addressed before you finished.

The PPI thing is ongoing and they will try and recoup it. You will always owe the full amount to your creditors until such time as the completion letter is received and there are also the IP fees as well.

The 5 year term is a baseline --- in your paperwork you will find that you agreed to a number of clauses that can extend the term, one being to address equity.

As Kallis says, this should have been addressed at around month 54 and I would consider this delay to be grounds for a complaint ... BUT ... your IP could turn around and bite back, because YOU agreed to certain actions at month 54 which you didn't comply with. Half a dozen of one and six of the other.

I would ask for details of their calculations, giving due allowance for the valuation as it should have been 18 months or so ago, to confirm if there is, indeed, equity to be addressed.

First of all re the extension yes this is a standard clause and would have formed part of your orioginal proposal terms. If you are in doubt look at your paperwork.

Check whether you have enough equity over the de minimis, which is usually £5k by getting an alternative valuation and challenging theirs.

As regards the sums received ask them for an up to date Receipts & Payments schedule.

You always owe the debt, plus statutory interest at 8% per year plus costs.

very loosely on a £21k debt (assuming no dividends paid to date and costs at say 15%) your total would be c£34k.

This is interesting to read as Me and my partner started our IVA in 2005, no one contacted us in our 4th year about what happens at the end of the IVA payments. I rang them to confirm that our final payments in 2010 were actually final. We were with firstly, Debt Matters, then Grant Thornton, now Aperture. Was told someone would be in touch after a review of the IVA, No one got in touch.After being left in limbo, and numerous e-mails and very few phone calls between then and now, 2016. I too thought the same as Alan, that you pay your agreed payments and that afterwards you would be free of debt, this is what you are told. If this is not true then the slogan should be corrected as it's very misleading. You may well have clauses of a possible remortgage but we were never offered an extension of twelve months, our creditors have been told we refused it. We would have extended it rather than a costly remortgage. We were told we had to find 3 lenders and confirm a remortgage would be refused. They came up with a £6,000 equity sum and told our creditors we refused to remortgage, untrue. We have one creditor that attached their debt to the mortgage, that should we sell or remortgage, they get the full amount of the debt paid from the funds. This was approx £4,000. This was asked about with Debt Matters just before the IVA started, we were told it was ok, it wouldn't matter. But it does as after finally getting a phone call and a letter full of legal jargon we don't understand, our IVA has failed. We paid all the payments as agreed. We have been left without contact until I pushed for answers. Totally left in limbo, trusting them to sort out our debt, it's what they are taking fees for isn't it??? Gareth Neill, never spoke to him but he is the IP on the bottom of the letters. I was tyold our creditors will once again be in touch but not for a while. Last Friday one letter arrived, stating a statement of the debt owed. So, the debts are not written off as you think and are told. The creditor on the mortgage, Weightmans, I'm told Aperture can't do anything about it by there assistant. Our creditors have been told we have breached the agreement of the IVA, we haven't. We have been fully co operative and upfront. Totally fed up now we did this to save our house and now face an uncertain time.

Oh dear, this doesn't sound good.

Reading between the lines it sounds as if your IP believes the remortgage didn't happen but neither did the extension.

The issue with debts not being written off is true if the IVA fails as you are back to square one again.

Has your IVA actually failed or have you received breach notices about it going to fail?

I would write and ask for a full explanation and if possible offer to pay the extra 12 installments to bring things back to what they should have been.

Also explain that you didn't refuse to remortgage.

Did you attempt to remortgage and send them the confirmation that remortgage applications were rejected as required?

What exactly are the breaches they say you have committed?

Lisa -- Sheila has put more detail in this thread:

http://www.iva.co.uk/forum/topic.asp?wh ... 815#613219

Thanks Foggy. If Weighmans got security/second charge over the property then I would think that settles that issue. If not they will be bound by the IVA as an unsecured creditor.

I think part of the issue might be that it seems SW did not provide the IP with confirmation that they were not able to remortgage. In her e-mail quoted she does say she doesn't wish to remortgage which probably didn't help matters but GT could have explained how they could have worked around that.

Rather than speak to SW and explain the whole procedure properly in layman's terms it seems on the face of it that GT may not have communicated the issues clearly to SW on the way and how they can be resolved.

From where I sit - all that needed to happen was for someone to simply say a) prove a remortgage is not possible b) unless you can show to contrary equitable interest is less than £5k pay 12 months more of contributions.

If not done already this needs to be escalated to the Gateway to see if there's anyway you can unravel it.

https://www.gov.uk/complain-about-insol ... actitioner

Having looked further at your comments above if they have now told you the 12 month extension will apply from 1st April 2016 it sounds to me like the IVA has NOT yet failed and there is still a chance to rescue it.

If SW can't afford to pay the 12 months she is at risk of the IVA failing.

She can try and argue di minimis equity, or get a reduction on the payments.

Ultimately however she might simply have to find the money to settle 12 more months of payments.

Perhaps a family member can help here.

I think I am getting Alan and Sheilaswheels mixed up as two query's have been posted on this thread. Apologies for any confusion. Hopefully some of my advice applies to both of you!