www.iva.co.uk

Hi, I am concerned about my IVA. I entered into it in 2006 and have been paying £200 per month since then. However, I have received two annul reports from my company Debt Matters and they have not contacted even half of my creditors yet. I thought a certain % of creditors had to agree to the IVA before it could go ahead. I am worried that they will just keep all of the money as fees at the end of the 5 year term and my creditors get nothing.
They are hard to get hold of and don't always answer my questions when I call or email. Also, I keep receiving letters from other companies saying I have been miss sold an IVA.

Any advice?

thanks.

Hi Linda.s
Please look in your proposal and chairmans report.I have a IVA with debtmatters and it says something on the lines that any unclaimed dividends for more than 6 months will be included in the next dividend distribution.
But should it be the final dividend will be returned to the debtor only if the creditors have been paid in full or the costs of making a further distribution exeeds the value of the unclaimed sum.I think you may have something in your chairmans report like this
Inregards to debtmatters please look a another thread that I have started.The company is selling all its IVAs to Greant Thornton,payplan and creditflex.Please do not be alarmed your main Interest is still to continue paying into your IVA.
P

Not sure about the main point you make, but referring to being advised of being mis-sold an IVA - it's the norm now that these companies scour the Insolvency Register for potential "targets". As and when I get some, they will make great fire-starters!!! [:p]

Are you sure the Supervisor hasn't notified the creditors or is it just a case of the creditors being slow to submit proofs of debt?

Ian

IPs should get creditor claims in and have them agreed by the time they issue their first annual report - so long as there is no HMRC debt which traditionally tend to take much longer to agree.

And IPs should certaintly not distribute monies to creditors until they have a full set of agreed claims, so the unclaimed dividends issue relates to non-banked cheques rather than creditors who have failed to claim.

No HMRC debt, only one creditor has replied and confirmed ok out of 8 creditors. It's a little strange but when I first contacted the creditors initially a lot of my debts could not be traced but Debt Matters didn't seem to think that was a problem. It felt as if all they where interested in was getting in that first payment as soon as possible.

So, a bit of a long question, if all creditors do not reply by the end of the term and the total amount of debt claimed by the creditors that have replied is less than the total amount I have paid at the end of the 5 years will I get back the difference less any fees?

Sorry, to confuse in my initial post what I meant was Debt Matters have contacted creditors initially, I think/hope, creditors may not have replied but Debt Matters advised me they don't chase the creditors only on the yearly report they submit.

An IP firm admitting that they don't chase creditors!!! I wonder what they are charging fees for doing? And no wonder our profession has such a bad name amongst the creditors at present if certain members are not making efforts to repatriate the monies to them.

2 years in and they've not agreed a basic set of banking creditors? No comment.

From the last annual report, can you tell how much cash they had sitting in the bank?

Ian

Hi Linda.s

Sorry to hear of the challenges but you are certainly in the right place for some support and guidance.

letters "have you been mis sold an IVA" ....

very delicate question as technically the proposal has been seen by oneself, read and signed to say that the terms are acceptable.

However with some companies the drive to fulfil revenue targets is so great ( with overheads, Massive advertising costs etc etc etc ) that there may be over optimistic administrators that put forward unrealistic and unworkable income/expenditures. These situations result in extremely challenging times for the IVA "participant" and is questionable whether the IVA solution was in the best interests of the client.

Some companies will write to you suggesting mis selling has occured ( the IVA council ) while others will offer either bankruptcy or a remortgage for F&F settlement.

Reviva UK also write to people in IVA's but we are interested in finding people that need impartial help and guidance. Quite often we are able to act as an intermediary between the client and IP and this is particularly useful when the relationship may have broken down.

we have a current client who's IVA company petitioned for their Bankruptcy and we were able to attend court, provide some support and now that the Bankruptcy order has occured we have been able to work with Melanie and they are in the process of re proposing an IVA.

So We don't believe that IVA's are bad just not appropriate for everyone. We also now have the link to this forum on our website as some folks are more thank capable of a little self help.

I am with Debtmatters and only two out of thirteen creditors have staked a claim. After my first review last July no creditors had been paid any dividend and there was approx £3,000 in the account plus, I assume, my payments in the second year - 7 @ £757.00

I have checked with Debt Matter and none of my creditors have been paid any dividends either. I feel slightly woried.

Whilst you have the protection of an IVA, Linda, let your IP worry about why he has not paid creditors! So long as you are maintaining your contributions, you are keeping your side of the bargain!