II missed ONE paymen and IVA extended one year

[Declan at DebtFreeDirect]

Hi All
Jan - a bit of mess is exactly what it is to be brutally honest and we (DFD) hold our hands up.
I had a meeting this morning regarding this and I can promise that in Gary's case we will ensure his issues are resolved promptly (it may sound like rehashed spin) but I can assure you it will. There is no excuse for not providing Gary with the answers he requires but unfortunately a combination of crossed wires and breakdown of communication has meant this did not happen in a speedy and efficent manner.

Mel - I’m more then happy to speak to Gary but I know he prefers email communication due to his work shifts but I am in contact with him.

Thanks

[kallis3]

I'm sure you'll get it sorted for him.

[MelanieGiles]

Declan's honesty is to be admired, and I am sure that Gary will get the result he needs with all of this going on behind the scenes.

[gary.js]

Just to a quick update.Declan has been in touch and has been great.Someone senior in DFD is looking to help me as well now, so hopefully we can get through this.I am sure I am a "one off bad case scenario", with DFD and don't mean to show them in a bad light as I am sure others are having there finances managed in a good way.If their company had 20 Declans then I guess they would be pretty slick :)I went into this with the promise of an IVA being my best option so getting into more debt was not the plan, lol.Thank god for this forum and people who care. Keep you posted.

[gary.js]

Just to update really. Other than a letter saying DFD are looking at this nothing else to report.Not sure how long it takes when someone senior gets involved as they are busy with other things I guess.

Still feel ill at the prospect of being more in debt at the end of this than when I started though . I know the woman I spoke to said that DFD could not foresee this when the IVA commenced but I have not had massive pay increases, in fact put in OVER £8,000 extra. The original payment of 96p in the pound was obviously too much for us hence after a year, of sometimes not eating, we had to change it to 92p in the pound. This of course mean't another year and 2 months (it seems according to DFD)added on to the term, through no fault of our own.As said no big pay increases, in fact no pay rise for 2 years,so the 96p was too high to begin with and through someone's calculations we have to, it seems, pay a high price by paying back more than we would have to start with if we kept the loans, according to the woman I spoke to, this is of course if she is right.

Anyway I await a reply now hopefully resolving all of this as there is no logic in most of what I ahve been told.

I will keep you updated if I hear anything.

[Declan at DebtFreeDirect]

Hi Gary
I will look into this for you and I know the lady dealing with your case very well so I will her to ensure you receive a speedy resolution.

Thanks

[gary.js]

Hi Declan,
Thank you. How long will this take approx do you think? It's been 23 days or so since the issues were raised. I am hoping I have not missed the mail or the photo copies I requested during this time.

Thanks

Gary.

[MelanieGiles]

If you have not have massive pay rises, what are the circumstances which have led you to pay contributions in excess of £8,000 more than were originally anticipated? Have you had a reductiom in mortgage payments or something similar?

[gary.js]

The "windfall" was the biggest. This was from a secured loan that we are paying Payment protection on. They gave it all to DFD as they had instructions from DFD to sent the money to them and not me.Over £7700.00.

The rest is from over paying as instructed by a DFD rep. This was done by basically eating less, buying tins of sardines etc and really pushing the boundaries on a healthy diet. Could not substain that for more than a week or so but saved enough to pay a little extra every month.All of this in vain now it seems, as we did not have to it now seems.

[MelanieGiles]

OK - fair enough, as I concur that the windfall should have gone to creditors in its entirity.

I do not, however, agree to you following an unhealthy diet due to the whims of a debt advisor. On what grounds did they tell you that your housekeeping budget had to be set?

[gary.js]

Hi,

DFD set the budget. I had no other way of raising the extra cash needed to pay more other than using the housekeeping money.I spoke to an advisor and she said that if I could pay more than the set amount monthly, this would definately help us, so a week or so of eating less would have been worth it if the end goal mean't finishing the IVA on time. Everything else, all my direct debits, were set in stone so only had my food money to play with really.If I had known that I was doing all this for nothing, as the extra paid in just goes beyond the 100% pay back and now apparently is paying back interest, then we would not have bothered to struggle. But we did not know this at the time.In fact still confused by all of this to be honest. Would have been quicker to shoot us at the beginning of it all and less stressful.

[pikelander]

Hi Gary,
I know it won't make you feel much better but we ended up in a similar situation. We started at such a high payment that we couldn't cope when my husband was off work sick and didn't get paid or our car needed repairing which I needed for my job. DFD advice was keep the receipt and the payslips and it wouldn't be a problem. We had a review and I sent in all the paperwork and they came back and told me we had a big arrears bill that would have to be paid and the only thing was to ask creditors permission to extend the payments for another year and slightly reduce the payments. They then told us that even though it was for 6 years there was still arrears and we still had to pay them so we upped the monthly payment so we could still finish on time (that was really hard). What you should also know is that even when you have finished you cannot get on with your life until the final certificate comes through (which they have told me can take 6 mnths (Declan is looking into this for us) and the IVA is off the Insovency Register which takes 3 months from the certificate of settlement. I'm telling you this because we were so excited after 6 long years to finish and currently feel like we are still being punished. My banger of a car is just about to give out, I can't get any financing for a new car and need a car for my job .....no car no job! I can't resolve this because although I have completed my IVA it hasn't been signed off and I am still a credit risk - that's a laugh I couldn't be less of a financial risk if I tried!
Hope they sort it out for you, but I wouldn't be too hopeful as we seem to have found out the bad news as we went along and the goalposts seemed to move. Pity it isn't all laid out from the beginning, consequences and stuff lke extentions and unable to get credit afterwards and how long they take to finalise it.

[gary.js]

Thanks for the feedback Pikelander. I really hope you get your certificate really soon. The thing thats stands out here is the original payments were again set too high.If like us there was no way they could be achieved and like us you to add an extra year onto the end (well I think I have) of the IVA through someone's mis calculation, so you pay the price for that. Hardly seems fair.

If everyone had told us the same thing then it would be so straight forward, but they have not.We just wanted to get out of debt and was told an IVA was the best option.We could now end up more in debt than when we started and more stressed, if we have been told correctly.It doesn't seem right and hopefully Declan can help us as well.

Thanks for your story and good luck.

Gary.

[MelanieGiles]

These posts go to show how important it is for people to set an affordable budget from day 1, and not take om commitments that are unaffordable just because someone says the budget has to be set at a specific level.

[gary.js]

Hi,
It's all over!!! To cut a long story short(makes a change for me), we put in a full and final offer and it was accepted 4 months ago. Last week we had a copy of the certicate sent to us and it's all over. It said in the letter that DFD were no longer involved and it was all over----YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!

When I read the cerificate I am not ashamed to say I wept, unexpected, but I wept.It was like a pressure oozing out of me.

Now to get our lives back on track...

Thank you all for the help along the way.

Special thanks to Declan, who is one in a million - Thank you Declan.