www.iva.co.uk

Hi there. I'm wanting to try and offer a full and final settlement for my IVA and was after some advise.

I'm currently just finishing my third year within an iva and have just completed my 4th review. My original debt was £21,000 and the original payments agreed were £197.50 for 60 months meaning I'd pay back £11,850. Since starting the IVA my salary has gone up quite a bit and my payments have been hiked up to £533 this time around. For the last 2 years my payments have been at £411.25 and although my income and expenditure hasn't changed this year they have now added on £122 per month saying that a mistake was made last year (by them) so although my surplus income hasn't changed I'll still have to pay more. Also if my payments stay at this rate for the remaining two years I will have paid around £5,000 more than I orginally owed!

Anyway I'm pretty unhappy with the whole situation from start to finish and feel I was mis-sold the iva. I have no assets and they didn't discuss any other options with me. Now looking back I feel I would have been better off with a dmp. A friend of mine has offered me an interest free loan of up to £6,000 to try and settle early. So far I have paid around £11,615 so with the £6,000 they will have been paid back a little under £20,000, around £8,000 more than the original agreement.

I have a couple of questions regarding all of this. First, what are the odds of this being accepted and if not whatkind of figure do people think would be accptable? How should I go about making the offer, should I simply go to them and offer the £6,000 or ask how much they would accept(and possibly end up paying less)?
What happens with the iva while this is all being decided? Do I carry on with my payments as normal? If its not accepted does my iva carry on as is?
Also there is the threat of redundency at my company (they're cutting 1300 jobs at the beginning of next year). Is it worth mentioning this to my IP in hope it may sway the creditors more towards accepting?

Sorry for the 20 questions but I'm a bit clueless to be honest and want to get a clearer idea before making any offers.Any help at all would be gratefully received.

Hi Linzi and welcome.

I'm no technical expert, but that sounds like a reasonable offer to me. I would mention the prospect of redundancy, as if you cannot ge another job in a reasonable space of time, the IVA could fail, and after this length of time, it is in no ones best interests for that to happen.

As for your comment about how much you would pay back over the five years, you will never pay back more than 100% of the loan, plus costs.

I'm not sure about your payments while you are waiting for a variation meeting. If Melanie is looking in, she will advise on that.

If you have disposable income currently in excess of £500, with a further 2 years to go on your IVA, it is unlikely that creditors will accept an offer of £6,000 as this would not be in their interests - given that it is likely that they would be repaid in full if things continued as they are.

If you are made redundant, this changes the situation, and then a full and final offer does become a viable option, depending on whether you will receive a redundancy payment or not.

Thanks both of you.

Melanie, I've been having a nosey through some old posts and came across one you commented on about Eversheds:
"They are a very commercial creditor and will look favourably at early settlements which provide them with at least the level of dividend they originally agreed to accept."

Nearly all of my debt has now been bought by Eversheds and so far I have already paid more than was originally agreed for the whole term. Do you think as its Eversheds they might be more likely to accept the lump sum of £6000? Like I said earlier, with this payment and what I've already paid they'll have had around £8000 more than they agreed to accept to start with.

Thanks

No - for the reasons I have quoted earlier. They are a commercial creditor, but ought to spot that they could be potentially better off by simply continuing to collect your ongoing payments.

That said, there is no harm in asking your IP if they are prepared to put forward an offer, and no harm in them asking Eversheds whether Max Recovery would be amenable to an earlier settlement.

OK thanks Melanie, I'll give it a go [:)]

Well worth contacting those creditors to see if they will accept a lump sum - my betting is they will.

In any event you won't have to pay back more than 100p in the £ of your original debt. I believe a variation is appropriate. A DMP might not have been appropriate at the relevant time as interest is not automaticly foregone!

I've been in touch with my IP directly who passed my case onto a senior manager at Payplan. She has said shes very optimistic the offer will be accepted so just waiting for a copy of the paperwork to arrive for me to sign so a variation meeting can be arranged. Hopefully I should have a decision by Feb at the latest.
As I didn't sign the paperwork for the revised payments they've also agreed to hold off on any increase until a decisin is made.
So its just fingers crossed for a while now!! Thanks for all your advice everyone and I'll let you know how I get on.

Glad to see that your IP and PayPlan being receptive - don't forget to let us know how you got on. Good luck.

Hi there
As promised I'm just letting everyone know that today I was told my full and final settlement figure was approved so in a week or so my iva will be completed. Such a massive weight off my shoulders so thanks to everyone who gave me advice and good luck to anyone going down the same road.

That's fantastic news Linzi. So very pleased for you.

Good luck for the future.

That's terrific news, Linzi - post a further follow-up when you have everything completed, won't you?

I notice David Mond last posted on this thread on Christmas Day!! There's dedication for you!!

thats brill . well done to you