Advice regarding my IVA please

MemmaJ

My ex-partner and I entered into an IVA with Gregory Pennington / Freeman Jones (I believe they're known by both names) in 2007. I can't remember exactly how it came about, but the way that it was 'sold' to us, made us believe that it was the best thing for us (and for a while, it was!).

Despite the majority of the debt being in my partners name, they were insistant that it must be a joint IVA. I don't know exact figures off the top of my head, but his debt was roughly £25k, and mine was roughly £2/3k. As I said though, they said we must both go into it.
The payments were set at £270 a month.

In January 2008, we seperated. It was kind-of agreed that he would continue to pay the IVA as the debt was mostly his (and because I would now have to bring up our twins on my own).

Soon after we separated, he left his job and didn't get another one for about 4/5 months. Which meant that the IVA didn't get paid in that time, and the IVA is now over £800 in arrears.
He has started paying it again in the last couple of months, but I recieved a phonecall from our 'personal IVA advisor' yesterday, saying that he is no longer willing to pay the full £270 a month as he can't afford it. (This has come about because I have recently made a claim for Child Maintenance through the CSA. So he now says he can't afford to pay both).

She basically said to me that I will have to pay half (ie: £135 a month) in order for the IVA to continue. I stated that I'm not willing to pay half (and reminded her that I've stated this before), because the debt isn't half mine!
She said that there are only 2 other options; either the IVA is terminated and we are both made bankrupt, or we can come to an agreement (a 'debt management plan') with my individual creditors....

So I asked for more information about that, as I'd rather not go bankrupt (I'm only 23!). And I was horrified when she told me that if I was to go down the 'debt management plan' route, the debts would be 'reset' back to the original amount; ie: nothing that has been paid into the IVA for the last two years, will go towards it!
I find this quite hard to believe...

She also told me that if I was to 'come to an agreement' with my creditors, I would probably end up paying more than £135 a month to them, and therefore I'd be 'better off to just pay half the IVA".
Again, I find this hard to believe. I realise she is probably doing/saying all she can to get the IVA to continue (so that she/they get their fee's!).

With regards to the arrears, she previously said that they could just be 'stuck onto the end' of the IVA, by way of extending it for a few months. When I spoke to her yesterday and she was asking if I can pay anything towards the arrears(!), I reminded her what she'd said about extending it, and she replied something like "well we'd have to approach the creditors about that, and it'd be up to them. And I don't think they'd agree to it because the IVA agreement has already been breached with these arrears".

I've always thought this IVA was a bit dodgy, to be honest. Not only because they were insistant on it being joint, but also because even now (2 years on!), I am still getting 'red letters' from at least 2 of the creditors who are supposed to be within the IVA (apparently, we weren't going to recieve any more letters from creditors!)

I just don't know what to do now, and I don't know which way to turn. My mum is a regular user of this forum, and she recommended I post on here and ask for advice!

If anyone can shed any light on the situation, the company, or the demands they're making, I'd be really grateful. The 'advisor' is expecting me to call her within the next couple of days to discuss it, so it'd be nice to have some ammunition!

Thank you.

skibadee

I can't help much I'm afraid , but would advise givng National Debt Helpline or CCCS a ring for advice.
I have a IVA with CCCSVA....the IVA is just in my name as 3/4 debts are in my name, the other 1/4 are in joint names....but they did not insist on a joint IVA but advised that my husband could be persued by creditors on debts which were joint.
I have recently missed 3 payments on my IVA due to changes in financial circumstances,.....I had a variation meeting yesterday and creditors agreed to lower payments...even though 3 payments had been missed..these will be added on to the end of IVA.

I hope you manage to get things sorted.

fnc6810

This i am not sure is accurate but how i understand it an IVA is Individual (1) (single) (no other person) Voluntary Arrangement.

Now another one of my personal gripes about the IVA process
MemmaJ you might have written in your proposal something like "This arrangement is proposed jointley with my Husbands/Partners voluntary arrangement if my Husbands/Partners arrangement fails this shall deemed to be a failure of this arrangement" or something like that.

Now this to me says its only an Individual Voluntary Arrangement in name only because if your INDIVIDUAL partner dosn't pay then you suffer although you yourself an INDIVIDUAL have not defaulted. So in my eyes this is not an INDIVIDUAL voluntary arrangement.

A question i need to ask is did your creditors vote on your partners arrangement or vice versa?
This happened to me and i thought it wrong because again this is not INDIVIDUAL. Anyway i don't know the legality of this but if its of some comfort i had and are still having a bad time with my IVA even though it is completed (read my posts).
Anyway have a good look through the forum and try and find as much as you can. Someone who put me right on a few things and is a good person to talk to is MIVAA.
best of luck
fnc6810

TheRedCRayon69

I'm currently looking at getting an IVA and yeah I was told that its not possible to get a joint one. I was worried because I'm recently separated and didn't want her debts to come to me and was assured it was an Individual agreement.

Could it be a Debt Management Plan? Do they even come as joint things?

MemmaJ

I phoned National Debtline yesterday, and was informed that Bankruptcy could have an effect on my particular job, so of course I started to panic even more then...!
However I have phoned my profession's governing body this morning, who told me that although my Creditors have a right to inform them if I am made Bankrupt, it usually does not have any effect on my right to do my job unless there are criminal charges connected with it *phew*

I have contacted our IVA practitioner today, and asked her to send me a breakdown of the creditors that are in MY NAME ONLY and how much is left owing to EACH of them.
I suspect it wont be any different than the original amount owed 2 years ago, because we've probably been paying nothing but the IVA fee's all this time!

When I get that (which will probably take forever, as the IVA practitioner is pretty useless!), I intend to make a budget sheet with my incomings and outgoings, and approach MY creditors with an offer myself.

That way if the IVA company do say they're going to make me bankrupt, I can say that I've already come to an arrangment with my creditors.

MIVAA

Hi MemmaJ,

There seems to be a little confusion here - not helped by the terminology - and I'll try to help clear this up first.

"Joint IVAs" as there are sometimes referred to, would actually be more accurately described as "Interlocking IVAs"

They specifically help people who share a common financial statement, ie people who live together, and although it isn't necessary for them to be married or even in a relationship, it often is the case.

Two Individual IVAs are drafted, one for each person, and each is a separate agreement from the other, but because the two IVAs are reliant on a common Financial Statement, when there is a change in circumstances both agreements will be impacted.

Joint IVAs can be extremely helpful in certain situations, especially when there are large joint debts, or is situations where the main earner in a family may need to enter into an IVA to protect an asset, yet doing so may leave their partner unable to maintain their own personal debts.

One upside of a Joint IVA is there's substantial saving on the IPs fees, as they run the supervision of both IVAs as one, therefore halving the cost to creditors, however, the major downside being as you have found, that if one fails, it's likely they'll both fail.

I hope that helps explain a little about Joint IVAs.

With regard to your situation MemmaJ...

Firstly, I'm a little surprised that you were advised to enter into an IVA when your debt level was so low. A debt of £4k would be around the minimum, so I can only really assume that you would have been really struggling to maintain your debts independently, without going into an arrangement of your own.

That aside though, I think you're quite right to try to reach an arrangement with your creditors now, if you don't want to declare yourself bankrupt, and what you were told by the lady from the IPs is rubbish by the way, £135 sounds very convenient to me.

I can't see how she would know what you would end up paying into a DMP anyway, unless she went over your personal circumstances with you again, but it shouldn't be any more than you can comfortably afford and if that's as low as £50 for the time being then so be it.

And I don't think your IP will be interested in making you bankrupt either, unless this was a specific clause in your proposal that the creditors requested, and I can't see that would be the case. Besides, as you say, she discussed the possibility of you entering into a DMP at £135, which would indicate you have no bankruptcy clause else why discuss a DMP, so you should be OK to try to arrange one for yourself.

If you find your creditors are difficult to deal with, and that you are getting nowhere fast then I would suggest you get in touch with the CCCS. They'll organise a DMP for you without doubt, and it would save you all the stress too.

One of the main things to remember with a DMP is - the less you contribute to the debts, the longer it will take to become debt free, obviously, - and because it's an informal agreement, creditors will periodically call for increases in your payments, but that's nothing to be concerned about really I'm sure you'll agree.

Good luck in getting back on track.

MIVAA

justwanabefree

Hi
my OH and I entered into a joint IVA in 2005 due to the fact that both our credit cards had been used a great deal to cover living costs/mortgage following 4 redundancies in 3 years between us. In 2008 we put forward a proposal to make a full & final payment on the sale of our home which was accepted by our creditors. However, since then my OH has been successfully sued by a real N***y B*****d which has put the IVA in real jeopardy. If the joint IVA fails because of the court judgement because we can't pay the court fees etc. then the " trust is bust " and the joint IVA fails. This means that I face bankruptcy as well as my OH !
This would not be so bad if it happened as soon as the judgement was made in Sept. 2008 However we are still awaiting a judgement from the IVA practitioner some 7 months later as to what is going to happen. It's like being on death row!

JWBF