As you are no longer making contractual payments to your creditors it is inevitable that you will get calls and letters. The choice as to whether to make token payments or not is one for you, as stated previously it will make no difference whatsoever. What you should do, if your creditors call, is to inform your creditors politely that you are looking at an IVA as an appropriate solution and give them my name and number. You will find that the vast majority of creditors will happily note that on their systems and leave you alone until they receive the proposal in writing.
Regards.
Cert DR
23+ years in debt advice
I do not post for anyone other than myself
never apologise for ranting..well not on here anyway [:)]
Don't panic about sending a letter, we sent letters to some and not others. The ones we sent letters to were worse than the other ones. The call centre staff normally deny all knowledge of correspondence anyway.
We didn't make any token payments ( same as a lot of posters) we used the money to make the firsy few payments and set a bit aside for contingency.
I know its a scary place right now and easy for us to say don't panic. I'm like you, if someone tells me their phoning within a certain timescale I expect that to be honoured. If you don't get the calls etc when expected, call or email them.
Please don't sit and stew as things can often seem worse. Post on here and offload anytime, how many times it takes to get you through. We've all done it and some of us even doing via email off forum too [:)]
In my firm we write to creditors as soon as we receive instructions to act. In this way we can field a lot of the hassle on our clients behalf, creditors are kept fully aware of progress and we are able to independently verify the amounts owed so that the IVA proposal can be prepared accurately.
It's just my opinion of course, but I do feel that this should be an essential part of the nominee's work. And whether you then make token payments or not ought to be a matter of personal choice - but in reality it will make no difference to the outcome of your creditors meeting.
I thought that would be the case here as well as both my husband and I signed letters of authority for the company to deal with our creditors on our behalf (at least I think that's what we signed) but the lady in the drafting team said that the first time they will contact the creditors is when they send the proposal, so I just hope it doesn't take too long to draft, although with Christmas coming up......
However, on the positive side Size5 has advised me to give his details to any of the creditors that contact us, so we will just have to wait and see how things pan out.
Perhaps Size5 could look at this one and let you know why it is not their firm's policy to write to creditors notifying of their involvement until the IVA proposals are drafted. Maybe there has been some misundertanding in the "drafting team" as I am sure that some independent verification of client information must be carried out - hence the fact that you were asked to sign letters of authority.
Simbel I'm with Melanie and her team, they wrote to my creditors and I wrote to them every 4 weeks thereafter to update them of the progress (I had to remortgage). I always gave my IP's (Mel) details if/when they rang.
We personally didn't make any token payments or otherwise once we were in the process of the IVA and my IVA was accepted.
IVA final payment left the bank on the 26th January 2013...looking forward to a debt free future.
I'm pretty sure Payplan wrote to our creditors as well (not that it made a lot of difference to the phone calls!)
We made no payments either.
Sharing from experiences of dealing with debt
The greatness of a man is not in how much wealth he acquires, but in his integrity and his ability to affect those around him positively.
Bob Marley. http://kallis3.blogs.iva.co.uk
It is Cleardebt company policy to not write to creditors upon receipt of pack as 95% of the time the black and white evidence of the pack will differ from the original phone call. That is to be expected, and we believe in giving our clients a period of reflection and also a chance to take on board any proposed changes before we charge in like a bull in a china shop.
If I have spoken to a client and agreed that IVA was an appropriate solution at, for example, £400 per month, but his or her pack indicated that either a lesser or higher payment was more appropriate, I firmly believe that the client should have the call on whether or not they wish to proceed. If we write to creditors and a client decides that they no longer wish to proceed then there is a danger that our actions could make things worse.
Writing to creditors before we have had a chance to discuss further with a client after receipt of pack is therefore not something we do. If Mels company/companies pursue a different policy and it works for her then fair enough.
Regards.
Last edited by size5 on Thu Dec 03, 2009 11:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
Cert DR
23+ years in debt advice
I do not post for anyone other than myself
Very logical explanation - again I apologise to everyone and especially Size5 for my vey ilogical rants yesterday (last time I felt like that was 13 years ago when I was pregnant with my daugther and the hormones were all over the place)
We clearly work in different ways, as we do not send packs ut to clients, but we fully interview them either on a face to face basis or over the telephone, at which time the statement of affairs is produced together.
Once this is done, and clients have confirmed that they wish to proceed with a particular solution, all that is left to do is to gather up paperwork and present the proposals. An important part of this for me is veryfiying the information, which can only be done by contacting creditors and matching client documentation to creditor documentation.
Our clients are also reassured that we are dealing with their creditors on a day to day basis. But I hasten to add that there is no right and wrong way - just what works best for each individual professional firm.
