IVA and child benefit

dubiousone

Hi all. Can anyone tell me whether IVA practitioner is allowed to include child benefit and tax credits as surplus when calculating income and expenditure? I'm aware that if you go BR they can't include child benefit as income but tax credits they can.

Any knowledge on this appreciated.

spenderblender

They calculate every last penny that you have coming in.

greytdog_2

yes they do include it as income - sorry.

dubiousone

Thank you both for the reply. I was curious because we are on an IVA with DFD:eek: big mistake I know! We are struggling with repayments, missed one at moment. They have been very very tight with expenditure, for example £4.00 per day per person for food, I've seen a couple of tins of dog food for that much. They also took overtime into account as surplus for creditors, but once IVA was set up there was an overtime ban so I'm not getting that. So surplus and hence IVA monthly payment is not a true account of our income and expenditure. We are considering BR as I can't see DFD reducing the payment amount regardless of what I have explained above.

Thanks again!!

spenderblender

We are also with DFD and paying £300 per month. We had review in November when I told them that we were £130 down per month due to csa payment stopping and they ignored it but said carry on as normal. We missed Jan payment and when they phoned I said we could no longer afford the payments. The lady said she would send out forms for us to fill in for an ammendment. The forms came and on the expenditure list the CSA payment was still listed and they had my OH as bringing in net per month over £1,000 I went online to work out his net pay which is actually £867 per month so their working out is totally wrong.
I have since filled out forms informing them they are wrong and given them the changes and are now awaiting their response. We have decided to go BR now anyway so hopefully they will write to say they are filing for it. Some hope.

dubiousone

Hi Splender. Your reply pretty much says it all, I've read threads about people writing and ringing to explain circumstances but have been ignored. I'm not happy with DFD, they've even lied to creditors on the contract, they state that I will lose my job if I go BR and IVA suitable alternative. I told them I wouldn't lose my job if I went BR, they totally over valued the car. They told me that the creditors wanted payment from them every 3 months, I've paid 6 months and I doubt DFD have sent any yet. They've probably kept it for some of their fees, although over the 5 years their fees are £13,000, that would leave about £17,000 for 4 creditors. How they can justify £13,000 fees over 5 years I don't know.

toshtec

This makes me real mad there are minimum figures that you can claim and £4.00 a day are way too low have alook at the debt advice boards and find out the "Trigger Figures" there are now.

I was claiming £480 permonth for food and there was just myself and my wife out of a combined income of approx £19k we paid into our IVA £375 a month.

Your supervisor has not done you any favours in the figure he has used go to the Suprvisor and ask for a creditors meeting to get a revision in the payments they do it when they want you to increase it so tell them you simply cannot manage and give them a true accountaing of what you are spending out on

The following were the trigger figures in 2002

Trigger Figures for I&E

: Couple with no children 1st column CNC
: Couple with children CWC2nd "
: Single Person SPN 3rd "
: Single Parent 4th "


....................................................C.... CWC..... SPN ..... SP
Telephone .................................... 17..... 24..... ....16..... .....23
Mobile phone ................................20..... 20..... ....20..... ....20
Faresd motoring ...........................173...... 181..... 171..... 179
Housekeeping ..............................314 ...... 461...... 191...... 322
Children ........................................ 0 ........ 38 .........0 ........... 53
Health .........................................17 .........13 ........... 20 ..........8
Pets ............................................ 12 .......14 ............10 ............ 8
Rep and mantce ...........................35 .........20 ..........24 ........... 20
dis expenditure .............................61 ........74 ...........47 .............49




You calculate on an addition basis ie single parent with 2 children and one dog would be allowed a maximum £708 a month without discussion of the figures used:-£16 telephone,or £20 mobile,£179 for travel?,£322 for housekeeping?,£106 for children,£8 for health?,only £8 for fido?,only £20 for repairs and maintenance? and £49 for Sundries.
: Its very complicated to understand the fairness and purpose of the amounts used,however these are the figures that they, whoever they really are, have decided the debt management industry should use as a maximum.

The colums are wandering a bit but I am sure get the idea as you will see you are allowed more than just £4 a day for food and that is just the start of things you can claim dont forget petrol and travell for work and trade union contributions there are holidays birthdays and christmas to be taken into consideration, I just wish I could post my I&E form for you to see it would give you an idea of what can be done if there is a way for you to message me privately do so and I will email you my IE for you to see what I was claiming and it turned out that there were more things I could have got like cigarette allowance an evening out drinks etc the list is very long you just need a good supervisor to look after you

dubiousone

Hi toshtec, sorry for delay in replying. I imagine DFD are looking to go with a surplus figure for the creditors to say yes so that they can get their extortionate fees from it. I'm annoyed at myself for having a lot less knowledge 6 months ago than I do now. I believe we were misold the IVA. I wasn't aware at the time that IVAs were in most cases for people with assets to protect, I just thought people went for them instead of BR. I have no assets to protect whatsoever. I'm not going to quibble over IandE with them, we're looking at BR because I would need the payments to reduce from £550 to about £250 to have any chance of completing the IVA. They're not likely to agree to that even if I did a new IandE, they'd say no chance, go BR!!

Thanks for your input toshtec;)

toshtec

If you are goin to go BR then stoop making payments into the IVA I was told by my supervisor that money was held back to ensure if I did not keep up with the instalments then they would automatically BR me after missing 2 payments without permission, just hang onto the money and if he does not BR you then you have the money saved to file yourself

spenderblender

Thats what we are hoping for. Come on DFD, do your job and BR me for non-payment. I can save the BR fees for myself then.