Bankruptcy nightmare

BB&B

PennyLane37 wrote: »

And Tim thank you, but I have just spoken to the OR and my IPA is £496.00 .................. gulp!! My IVA payment was £206.00......... I have just pulled myself together after sitting on my kitchen floor crying.... ( probably a bit too much information sorry!)

The OR said according to their allowances I have a disposable income of £709.00 per month.. which clearly if I did I would not be in this mess in the first place!

Defiantly go back to the OR with this one, 'cos I bet the IPA consists of both Surplus AND NT Tax.

So until April you will have what appears a high IPA, but from April it will significantly DROP, as tax is then diverted back to HMRC. But assuming HMRC don't pull their finger out, the NT element may not come into effect, so you may well only end up paying the surplus element.

Tim

PennyLane37

I will be going back as unfortunaltely the tax amount is another £258 on top of the £496.00...

I also managed to speak to the company who 'helped' me with all this...and they say that they are as shocked as everyone else.. as they found out yesterday. Which is probably the case ... but who knows...

As soon as I receive the paperwork from the OR I shall be reviewing it... as really cant believe how today has unfolded.. I thought it was bad yesterday.. but today..... phew!

I will keep you posted... and no doubt will be back for more advice.

Thank you all so much! Without you all knowing it, you have made a big difference to my day!

wotway

This is awful and looks likethe start of what i suggested on another thread yesterday. Morals and fees aside (lets face it anything legal and longwinded costs money and volunteers can give advice but seldom long term work). It seems that this company only went along with the law as it stood at the time. If you were in an IVA it would have taken about 6 months for a termination certificate so it appears they must have been advising last june july. In fairness the advice they gave was correct and they had no way of knowing that this was to change. they must have a ccl to give the advice so are regulated to do so. And also bb&b I agree with the car advice too.We have to remember that the rules for income and expenditure also changed in dec. the problem is not the advice you recieved but the way the insolvency service have arbitarily changed the rules without any publicity and are STILL showing the old ones.I've had long conversations with my contact in the insolvency service who tells me that they admit it's a mess and big mistakes have been made . The worst part is that the rules seem to be being applied retrospectivley. ie. people who had a court petition in oct and an OR interview 2 weeks later should really be subject to the prevailing rules is my thinking, or is that just me being naive? In effect the OR has just held on to the files to apply the new rules which seems less than fair, but what do we expect?

hermoine_2

I really feel for you OP. But you can you use this company that you paid money to, to intercede for you with the OR.

I paid a lot of money to a company to assist with my BR £5k it was worth it for me because they took care of everything and accompanied me to OR interviews and made sure that I was treated fairly. I kept my house, my car and never had a payment order. I went BR for £130k and was suicidal.

So if you can let this company take charge, I never received any post it all went to the insolvency company and I got a call from them telling me what to do next. Not all insolvency companies are bad news, they can help.

H

debtinfo

Wotway - no rules have actually changed, the company could have advised the OP of the rules as they stood and still do stand today. Only the OR's guidelines have changed which they are free to do at any time. Any company advising should advise based on the acts of law about all of the possible outcomes not just the usual ones. Also you will see from the OP's post that only a proportion of her surplus has been taken not the whole amount and so she has been assessed under the old guidelines, the problem is with the allowances that have been made.

To the OP - why dont you pop you SOA up so that we can have a look at how the amount of surplus may have been calculated

JCS1

hermoine wrote: »

I really feel for you OP. But you can you use this company that you paid money to, to intercede for you with the OR.

I paid a lot of money to a company to assist with my BR £5k it was worth it for me because they took care of everything and accompanied me to OR interviews and made sure that I was treated fairly. I kept my house, my car and never had a payment order. I went BR for £130k and was suicidal.

So if you can let this company take charge, I never received any post it all went to the insolvency company and I got a call from them telling me what to do next. Not all insolvency companies are bad news, they can help.

H

It's up to the examiner doing an interview to decide whether or not to allow a third party attend, and the third party is not allowed to answer questions.

.

BB&B

JCS1 wrote: »

It's up to the examiner doing an interview to decide whether or not to allow a third party attend, and the third party is not allowed to answer questions.

.

In fact at my local ORs Office, unless there is a legal Power of Attorney in place the examiners will NOT allow third party representation in any way shape or form. Nor will they allow documents to be submitted by third party organisations.

The reason for this is that people have been able to 'hide' assets and later claim ignorance that the third party was dealing with it.

The other aspect of this is that the interview is given loosely under caution, so legally ONLY the bankrupt can answer the questions.

In Pennylane'ss case IF the company filled in the SoA and I&E then it is VERY possible that it is incorrect, and that will in itself give raise to a valid challenge!!!

Tim

hermoine_2

JCS1 yes I know that you cannot have a third party answer the questions but it was good to have moral support and the company I went with were finance lawyers so they could advise me after without having to rely on me remembering what had been said!

I am only giving my opinion and account of what happened to me and how I found an insolvency practitioner to be helpful - all that anyone says on these forums is how they are BAD and no one should ever use them.

H

hermoine_2

BB&B why do you say the information on the SOA will be incorrect because the company filled it in? The OP will have provided the information.

H

debtinfo

From my experience any cases where one of these companies is used to fill in the forms will be checked with a fine tooth comb by the OR. This is because these firms often just make up the info in the SOA rather than going through exactly what the bankrupt spends. The OR can usually spot them a mile away usually because that totaly unique personal statement at the back is often mostly just cut and pasted from a standard form