Hi Guys
Been a while since I last posted, as I was under the impression we were making our way down the IVA road. Today I have found out this isnt the case. If I could just give you a quick summary...
At the beginning of September last year, my wife and I took advice from Thomas Charles, regarding our options. We owe £50k however £45k of that is in just my name and the £5k is just in hers.
We do not have any assets, rent our property and have a car on HP.
We were advised that an IVA was possible and a proposal was drafted. I signed it and returned it.
It was then sent to Wilson Phillips Insolvency Practitioners in early October.
I didnt hear anything for about a month, I then received a phone call from a third company (who later I discovered were an "overflow" company for Wilson Phillips) who told me that a provisional date of 29th November had been set for a creditors meeting. I signed all the paperwork and returned it. I was also asked to make two monthly payments equal to my proposed IVA repayments, which I did.
Two weeks later (six weeks from the original hand over) Wilson Phillips contacted me to say that they felt our application would not be accepted as my wife's credit card being with just one company would create problems with getting the IVA approved.
So our original advice of applying for a "joint" IVA was incorrect. What we should have been advised was for the IVA to be just in my name and my wife set up a DRP for her personal credit card debt.
I returned to Thomas Charles for clarity and was told that the original proposal had been set up with advice from Wilson Phillips and this problem had never been mentioned.
So in mid November we were told that we would have to try and negotiate a DRP with my wife's creditor for her credit card and then re propose deducting the amount of the DRP.
We had already given that creditor permission to talk to Wilson Phillips so I asked if they would discuss the DRP on our behalf, as Wilson Phillips would know how much per month we could afford to pay to still make the IVA a viable plan.
The lady there agreed. By the end of December she eventually told me that she had been unable to talk to anyone at HSBC (my wife's creditor) and she would try one more time.
Miraculously she succeeded, and told me that although HSBC had received my letter of authorisation, I needed to send another one.
So another six weeks had past and still nothing had been sorted. I immediately sent the authority.
Long story short, my representative at WP, failed to speak to anyone at HSBC and organise anything.
Eventually I emailled for progress (which is what I had to do every step as I was never contacted by the IP at all) to be told that her manager had already asked her on two previous occasions to close the case as it was taking too long to process.
I pointed out that the length of time taken has been down to them, and I had done everything that had been asked of me.
I then received an email telling me that she had passed my case over to her manager and that she would be dealing with it.
Week later (ie this morning) I have received a letter from Wilson Phillips saying that my case has been closed, and the file handed back to Thomas Charles, citing the reason as not being able to reach an agreement with HSBC in a suitable time frame.
So after four months, Im back to square one? Where do I go from here?
Im waiting to hear from Thomas Charles, but I don't see as any of this is my fault.
I cant believe that a company that deals with IVA's and bankruptcy like Wilson Phillips, does not have a contact within most of the major financial institutions in the country. How can it have taken nearly 3 months to now just give up and put me back to the beginning again?
In addition to this, I was told that HSBC would request a minimum return of 40p in £ which was why they didnt want them to be the only voter, yet my proposal stated a return of 41p in £ so there would have been a good chance of it being accepted anyway?
Its enough to turn you to drink [:(][:(][:(]
