www.iva.co.uk

Hi, Can anybody out there help?

I have been in my IVA for 18months and Clearstart have just completed my annual review.
Since I started the IVA, I have a new job and am earning £8K a year more. When calculating my new payments, they have taken into account that I've been earning more, treated that as overtime and asked that I pay 50% of this backlog on top of the ammended monthly payments which have already gone up. They are suggesting new payments of nearly £600! (This is more than I was paying back without an IVA!)When i get the calculator out, these new payments mean that I will end up paying back 100% (rather than the 45p in the pound agreed) of the money owed to creditors AND the £4000 arrangment costs - which means Im paying back £4K more than I owed in the first place.

Im happy that Ive taken out the IVA as Im now on the path to being debt free, and havent borrowed a penny since the start, but im worried that I didnt do my research properly. The IP's fee's are nearly £4000 - is this about right?

Is there a way out of of an IVA early? (ie: reaching a new agreement with my creditors on my own and paying back 45p in the pound as per the original agreement?)

Id also like to go and see someone face to face to discuss my options further and to simplify things, can anyone recommend a Financial advisor/debt expert?

Any help would be much appreciated.

Lester

Hi Lester and welcome to the forum

The whole spirit of proposing an IVA to your creditors, is that you acknowledge that if your circumstances improve then your payments to creditors will increase.

Whether Clearstart are right or wrong in your case will be down to the wording of your IVA proposal, and possibly creditor modifications. A £4,000 fee does not seem unreasonable for the work the IP has carried out, and you woul dhave paid more than that in interest had you not proposed an IVA - so it all seems a bit of a win/win situation to me.

I suggest that you pay over as much as you can with the aim of getting the IVA closed as soon as you can - and that might save you a bit of money in the fees, as an early settlement offer will still need you to disclose your current circumstances to creditors and if they can see that you could afford to pay all of the money back they are unlikely to accept 45p.

You might like to discuss this with Paul Johns of Reviva who is one of the experts on the forum. Paul acts completely independently of your IP and your creditors and ought to be able to offer sensible practical advice as to the best way of concluding your IVA.