COMPLAINT WITH IVA PAYPLAN- really need assistance as dont know what to do!!!

Needs-Help.

Hi Everyone,

I feel i have been misold an IVA with Payplan. I have emails stating the payments should be £150 for the five years and no mention of any bonus of overtime being deducted at any time. when i realised this was going to be deducted payplan said that if i had any major bills to pay ect that month and needed my overtime then i wouldnt have to give this.

Payplan also say any overtime will not go off the balance and is just as an extra to creditors. The agreement has tied me into 22 monthes at £150 then 38 monthes at £230. Yes i signed it without reading ( i know, i know! ) but payplan took me through it all and just told me to quickly sign and send back and it was only when it was announced at the creditors meeting when it was accepted did i realise as they told me.

I have been to the citizens advise who have taken my contract to read through but have stated they are not financial advisors :SS and still havnt responded after 2 weeks, and I made an official complaint with payplan and they resonded and said this would be resolved & looked into within 10 days. It has now been over a month and i have not heard anything. i sent them the emails to back up my evidence and i havnt heard since. Should I go to the financial ombudsman? Who can help me? and will any of this even do me any good? i asked what would happen if i cancelled my IVA and payplan said creditors would just chase me again. Am thinking of going bancrupt. I have no money and work loads of overtime to pay bills,i am trying to take extra courses to better myself but the more overtime i work the more they take , and i have alot of problems with my knackered car, i am 28 years old and dont even have any money to start a family. i would hate to bring a child into this mess. i know my debt is my responsabily but i got made redundent and thats why i started this whole IVA mess......hope someone can help, and had time to read this ......

Thanks _pale_

trudij

Didnt want to read and run.... Im sure someone way cleverer than me will be along soon - but to me it sounds like you need to get payplan on the phone, speak to your IP and make sure they are sorting things out - they are meant to be there to help you !!!

good luck x

adfax

Hi there

Sorry to hear that your IVA is not working out as you expected.

However - and I apologise up front if what I am about to say is not what your want to hear - but ...

The purpose of an IVA is to recover as much money as possible for your creditors, whilst leaving you with enough money to live on, within a limited time frame. When the IVA agreement is set up it does not explicitly state how much they WILL get - just how much they can EXPECT to get.

This works two ways - if you fall on hard times and have to reduce the payments, then the total they get may be less than expected (my IP can vary the payments by 15% without going back to the creditors), but if - as in your case - you get some extra money, in the form of overtime or a bonus, then the creditors get (at least a share) of this so they get back more of their money than expected.

My agreement allows me to keep any bonus / overtime equivalent to 10% of my salary, and then I only have to pay them 50% of the amount over 10%. So if I am earning £2000, and I get a bonus of £150 a month I keep all of it. If I were to get £300, then I would keep the first £200, and give up half of the remaining £100 - ie £50. It may be worth seeing if your agreement has something like this in it so you can keep some of your overtime / bonus.

As far as being missold your IVA, without seeing your IVA agreement it is impossible to say. However, my agreement (with CCCSVA) is very clear on this, and I suspect that Payplan will have made this clear in your agreement. The fact that you signed it without reading it isn't going to help you really, unless you could prove that you were pressured into signing it agaisnt your will.

Having said all of that, if you now feel that you are genuinely struggling to meet the revised payments, you could send a revised SOA to Payplan and see if they will reassess your payments. On the other hand, if you just feel a bit peeved that you are having to give up your overtime rather than pocket the money they aren't likely to be very flexible.

Sorry if this isn't helpful, but hopefully it might clarify things a bit.

althas

I must agree with adfax I am afraid. My IVA is the same, I can keep the first 10% of any overtime etc, then the remainder is split 50/50 between my creditors and I. This was all clearly stated in my agreement. You should read through yours and see if there is a similar statement (I suspect there will)

If there is, then I am sorry, but I can not see what you can do about it on that basis, I would say that you should have read the agreement before you signed it

If you are struggling with the payments, then a discussion with your IP is essential to see what they can do the help

Again, sorry if this is not what you want to hear, but I suspect you will get the same from Payplan

Needs-Help.

Thank you all for the advice, its been the best advice i have had so far ......so do you think if i say i am struggling to meet payments then , when they go to higher the payments after 22 monthes, and my situation hasnt improved and i cant afford the jump to £230 they may keep my payments at £150 until the end of the agreement or will they just extend it? and do they ever ask to see bank statements? is it just wage slips? ...Iand if me and my partner have children how to they add that to the IVA? Thanks so much guys

Charco_2

Definitely.

You can hardly be expected to change your IVA contributions if there is no chage in your circumstances! So what changes after 22 months? Why do you suddenly have to pay a further £80?

Needs-Help.

They say that my rent arrears will have freed my up more money but it was rent arrears me and my partner owed his mum and we dont have to pay them back now ( not that i am gonna mention that to payplan ) But im sure there will be something else by then, i mean thats 2 years away, i may be having a child, or move jobs ( it prob benifits me to go lower wage!!! ) so then i can keep at £150 is that what happens then? You just cant know whats gonna happen really can you? I have had to just pay a £400 council tax bill anyway from our old flat that i didnt know about so they cant take my overtime i had for them anyway, i have had to use that, so do you know what will happen? will they expect me to pay that back?

Thanks for your help, there is really no support out there other than these forums

ilikewatch

Needs-Help,

It really sounds to me like you need to go back to Payplan and try and sort this out, - you shouldn't be having to "work loads of overtime to pay bills" - your bills should have been accurately stated on you expenditure forms, and after all legitimate expenditure (food, rent, bill, medical expenses etc) then everything left over should be paid into your IVA. Remember, in an IVA you should not have any surplus funds - all your expenditure has been stated in your proposal, and your creditors have agreed to you entering an IVA based on these figures.

I know that it's easy to say these things with hindsight, but you really should ensure that you carefully read any documents relating to your IVA. An IVA is a legally enforceable contract, and you will have signed to say that you understand the contract and agree to be bound by its terms.

cheesedoffwithdebt

Charco wrote: »

Definitely.

You can hardly be expected to change your IVA contributions if there is no chage in your circumstances! So what changes after 22 months? Why do you suddenly have to pay a further £80?

I thought once the monthly payments were agreed, if your expenses go down there is no obligation to pay more into the IVA- it's only if you get additional income.

Payplan do rush things I stopped using them- but I've just set up an IVA and asked the same question- I am not sure you've been mis-sold it's more like you've not been given clearly all the facts about living with an IVA and how it works but do go back to them with a list of questions and absolutely insist they come back to you. Unlike the debt management side, IP#s are regulated and do have a complaints procedure- so they should react accordingly.