Husband in IVA

Seventh

Hi there,

My husband plopped himself into a IVA earlier this year. Because we are living together they wanted to know all the household bills and worked out a income/expenditure chart.

As my husband was unable to afford it all by himself, they asked me to sign a piece of paper that stated - "As you are aware, your husband is proposing an IVA and as part of his IVA, you will be offering your surplus income each month to assist with his IVA contribution." There is a little more to it but this is the bit I'm a little worried about now.

I am currently on maternity leave and so am on maternity pay. I am returning to work in September and will be earning my full salary again.

I am willing to help pay the household bills as I do most of this anyway, what I need to know is, will they take into account my higher earnings and can they take more of my money? The IVA is purely in his name and I was hoping to be able to put money aside to save for our next child. (due to fetal abnormalities - our baby has since passed away)

Also - when they were working out the form - they stated I have £40 to pay creditors each month which we queried at the time as I pay over £200 per month but they said this didn't matter as it only needed to show we could afford the re-payments.

Could someone help me out please as I am really confused and don't want to be going back to work just to pay more money out to something that is in my husbands name.

Thanks
7th x

MIVAA

Hi 7th,

In principle you will need to provide enough money to cover your fair share of the family's expenses.

This is normally expected to be a proportional contribution at the same or similar ratio of your earnings compared to the total house income. ie if you earn 50% of the money coming into the home, then you should be contributing 50% of the money needed to run the household - if 30% of the income, then 30% of the costs etc

Once you are providing the correct proportion of your income to the running costs, the rest should be yours to keep.

If your husband has been paying a greater amount of the running costs recently - due to your mat leave - then there maybe a sizeable increase in the amount you will be expected to contribute to the household budget.

This in turn will free up more of your husband's income to repay towards his debts through the IVA.

You should talk to your husband about your concerns, and he in turn should talk to his IP to get a more accurate idea of what you can expect to happen over the next few months.

I appreciate this may not be the news you wanted to hear but I hope at least this helps you understand what will be expected of you and what you should do about it.

MIVAA