I would suggest that you contact another couple of companies, try www.iva.com for a list of companies and some reviews of these, you can get free impartial advice in respect of all debt solutions. Our professionals who post on the forum all come highly recommended too. x
IVA final payment left the bank on the 26th January 2013...looking forward to a debt free future.
I would recommend contacting a few, I initially contacted CCCS would were great and I really needed someone to point us in the right direction however they did tell me I couldnt enter an IVA for around 18 months or so due to one of our creditors being under a year old...
Based on this forum I spoke to another (excellent I must add[:)]) IP and I am now 9 months into my IVA, had I stuck with CCCS I would have still been in a DMP and my IVA application would have been another 6 months off...
Plus to add I did setup a DMP with CCCS and the figures were quite unlealistic, I only made 1 payment due to going down the IVA route but I dont honestly think we could have survived on the CCCS recommended budget.
I wonder if CCCS are more realistic in their IVAs as I've found them very helpful, e.g. they increased my monthly food allowance by £45 at my yearly review.
That is interesting Lord Soth. Their guidelines are a maximum of £195 for food and toiletries. If they have increased your allowance to above this level it means their guidelines are effectively penalising all those who are trying to put together a financial statement now.
It is also interesting that the guidelines have not been increased for years despite the huge increases in the cost of basics such as food and heat and light. I wonder why they think that people can still live on the same amount of money as they could years ago?
It was kept within that limit, i.e. my food allowance was increased to £195 by CCCS - but I had put down £145 as part of my review, and the 'extra' £45 was very welcome.
Hi
It just shows that it pays to speak to several IVA providers. I have had cases that have come back from an IP only to be taken on by another practitioner and successfully approved by creditors.
Regards
I would say the extra £50 was really helpful as £145 for a single person is way too low. When I started nearly twelve years ago the allowance was between about £150 and £180. Creditors would take into account factors such as whether you lived with your parents, shared a house and even factors such as living in London. People who live and work in London get an additional allowance for 'London Weighting' due to the high cost of living there. Unfortunately, while this allowance is taken into account when calculating income, there appears to be no allowance in the CCCS guidelines for the additional expenditure.
That is clearly wrong and if the CCCS ever get around to updating their 'guidelines' maybe they will take into account factors such as these and also a minor thing called inflation which is running at almost 5%.
