www.iva.co.uk

my outgoings have increased since last review and i was sent a new form which has made me relasie that you can include more stuff than i thought. I sent it back but IVa people dont seem to be keen on doing anything about it and we are struggling a bit. Any ideas?

Hi
It's hard to get allowances for things that you have not initially claimed for.Try to concentrate on the increase in the allowances that you originally had agreed.
You have to see it from the creditors point of view as your initial proposal did not have these allowances in it,why should they now agree to them ?
Regards

well gthe cost of living has gone up and at begining the sheet ws not so comprehensive as it is now. Utulity bills have gone up etc. I

You have a point here Jill ... everythig has gone up! I'm not sure how they allow for this in the yearly reviews ... I am sure that some of the experts will know though.

Debbie

I think the key here is to increase the outgoing that you had on your first sheet and not including anything new. The purpose of the review, I should imagine, is to take into account any change in income and expenditure, if this is not done then there is surely a risk that the IVA will fail and the creditors risk getting even less or even nothing....

Andy I take in your point above but when I compiled my first I/E form I was very naive and did not put down all my expenditure only the ones on the form supplied by Debtmatters
The following were nor shown

keep of tropical fish (hobby)
general spending ie. social, birthdays etc.
medical/dental/optical/ expenses
special diet requirements (virtually salt free diet)
any sky package
house maintenance


luckily I have worked overtime on a regular basis and have been able to supplement the above

However I intend to include them on my next review but do accept I will probably pay additional money into the IVA

An IVA is not meant to leave you struggling financially for the next four years, so if there are genine areas which you did miss the first time round, and you can provide evidence of and justify the need for that expenditure (sorry hobbies/social/birthdays cannot really be justified) then you might find that your IP may be prepared to reduce the payments.

Hi Jill
I agree totally,utility bills and petrol costs etc have increased and these ae areas that you need to show the true cost,these are also expenditure that you would have included initially.
The point I was making was that it would be hard to ask for expenditure for,example,a pet,if you did not have one at the point of entering into your IVA etc etc.
Regards

melanie says that holidays/social/birthdays cannot be justified. IVAs are not meant to leave you with no life at all and these three things are a fact of life so should be allowable in an IVA. Many IVAs fail because no allowance was made for these and the debtor just doesn't feel they can do without these for five years. Creditors may not like it but i doubt that any of them could go five years with no social life or holidays and not buying someone a present for five years.

Most people still manage to fund these items from their housekeeping budgets, and the CCCS do allow Sports, Hobbies and Entertainment so there is some allownce within that.

I agree welshman, not allowing for holidays surely punishes the whole family not just the person in debt ( a cheap holiday of course)five years to go without birthday presents and holidays is a huge chunk of a childhood.

Hi
I think that it would be better to have a reasonable contingency allowance and then this could be used for holidays etc if so desired.
I think the fact that ORs allow a holiday allowance in bankruptcy strenghens the argument for one in an IVA
Regards

Hi
Does anyone know what % increase would be acceptable to an IP, on say food.
I curently have £400.00 per month for food, cleaning, toileteries, haircuts etc... for 2 adults and 2 teenage girls and as some of you may know teenage girls very expensive !!! I am struggling a little with this. What would you say is an acceptable increase.

Caraf, My allowance is £480 per month for food, for me, hubby, and two kids.

Debbie
That works out at around 110.00 per week, are you managing ok on that.
Hope you are ok ?
carol
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