This may be one for the professionals and the old hands as I need some impartial advice. I was evicted from my flat as it was deemed uninhabitable and the landlord had to carry out maintenance work. I hadn't had a rent increase in 3 years and when I found a new flat it was £100pm more expensive.
My meagre annual salary increase (£70pm) was taken in full to partially offset the rent increase although my IVA doc says "if your income increases you will need to increase your monthly payments by up to 50% of the extra" and this was defined as being AFTER any increase in expenditure - am I right in thinking that I should not have been forced to cede my pay increase here?
Secondly, I had been given a £145 (gross)one off bonus. Though it is obviously not in excess of 10% of my annual income I disclosed it in the interests of transparency. While this was not taken to offset the rent increase - they assumed a £12pm salary increase and offset this against the rent increase (honestly, they'll be raiding my penny pot next!). Again, to refer to my T&Cs, I need to pay in 50% of bonuses above the the first 10% of normal net salary. - So surely, I should have been able to keep my £145?
The outcome is that despite a salary increase I am now £30pm worse off than when I started the IVA (the contributions are £30 too high whn I do the I&E form). As you can imagine, this is pretty substantial when I only have £50 for contingencies!!
I have been maintaining the too-high contributions since I moved in Feb and wonder:
1/ Can I get the contributions back to an affordable level at my annual review this month?
2/ If I'm right in my understanding of the IVA, can I ask for my salary increase to be for my disposable income going forward?
3/ Will it be noted that I have made these contributions as a gesture of goodwill towards my creditors?
As an aside, is there scope for a higher contingency budget...I am well understanding the isolation of poverty and can only refuse invitations for coffee, dinner, parties etc so many times before the phone stops ringing. Plus I hve a very large family and lots of steps so there is a birthday every month!
Long winded but thank you to everyone who perseveres and can offer me some advice.
We cannot advise about specific cases on this forum as we can never be in receipt of the full facts even with the most detailed of postings. However, I can confirm that you should not be any worse off as a result of pay rises or the receipt of bonuses. That does not make sense, and I think that you need to arrange an urgent chat with your IP to see if this can be amended - or at least to understand how the uplift has been calculated.
