Change in circumstances of HIS IVA - my wage reduces - will that force him bankrupt?

natasha2010

Sorry for the ramble, but any advice much appreciated:

Boyfriend & I live together / not married.
We have a Joint morgage / we morgage 50% of house / other 50% is owned by housing association / our outstanding morgage is about £78k, and property is in negative equity of around 20k Id guess.

He has an IVA in his name only - total unsecured creditors debt £39,300.

He's been in it just over a year / and pays £573 each month for IVA.

I just called the company he has it with (debt free direct) as Im authorised to talk about it with them, and they say he has £25,800 left to pay in total.

The figures shown for the DFD fees were £2500 nominee fee / £9204 supervisory fee and VAT total of £2048. I think these fees are extra to the £25k he has left but are somehow worked into the plan over the term.

I can see from the paperwork sent that they came to the payment figure of £573/month by adding our combined cleared wages and deducting the living allowances which left exactly £573.

Our morgage alone is £550 and we have to pay rent on the other 50% so total for house is about £800/month.

So with that and the IVA payment, those two figures alone take ALL my partners cleared wage each month.

They put my own wage contribution down on the form as "partners contribution" which was shown as £1075. I actually clear about £1600 but have my own expenses like running a car and credit card debt of about £2,500.

Problem we face now is that my job is "up in the air". Long story but Ive been suspended on full pay, and its likely they will try to dismiss me - I dont know how long the suspension will take, they are a small company and they have no real grounds for suspending me so of course I'll fight my case legally if I have to - may even get a small settlement - but may also get nothing and cant look for another job in meantime as if I found one Id have to resign, and I want to see what my employer does first as they are in the wrong and I dont see why I should resign if I can fight it and get a settlement out of it. In the meantime, whilst they are paying me in full Id be mad to resign.

I have to ride it out about the job, but whatever happens - unless I get a settlement from them and can offer it to pay off IVA (figure this would have to be a sizable offer of around £15k which is unlikely), then Im looking at having to take a SEVERE drop in salary on any new job I get as I cant face going into management again, its too stressful (plus its not easy getting jobs these days anyhow and I was well paid in my last one as I had been there a long time).

Its more likely I'll take a differenty type of job and looking at a drop of £900 month potentially. This wouldnt leave the £573 for the IVA that the plan calls for so surely it would fail? If my partners wage clearance is only £1600 and the morgage is £800 then they cant surely make a case for him having enough left over for IVA payments?

Of course when we know for sure whats happening about my job we will tell the IVA company and they will have to re-assess the I&E but I cant see how the heck its going to work.

If the IVA fails then I presume that my boyfriend is forced into taking himself bankrupt (or the creditors do it but surely better to do it himself?) - which worries us, but then again, would it really be worse than what we are in now? Presently the IVA have a stake in the house: in 4-5 yrs they will ask us to re-morgage and release any equity (its likely this wouldnt be much / if at all as we bought a new build and you pay over the odds for them even BEFORE the recession struck). It could also be extended to 6yrs.

If he went bankrupt - they would consider my new wage, and his existing wage and we could probably meet the morgage payments OK and still have enough to live on / maybe even enough to make smaller payments to the court / if we didnt have the whopping IVA payments. I think the official receiver is unlikely to make us sell the house as its in negative equity - and whats would be the point in additig to his debt, so maybe they would just stake a claim like the IVA to release equity within 3 yrs if it had any.... but surely this is better than the 4-6yrs for IVA and the payments for the bankruptcy would be smaller as they are based on what we could AFFORD on the new combined salary?

Im not advocating getting out of his debt, we didnt plan for me to be in this situation with my job - he has a medical problem and they could medically retire him or down grade his position to a massive pay cut. He is presently signed off with stress - full pay and would be paid for up to 6 months, but the job is massivly contributing to the problem, and if he leaves, he would also be looking at a sizeable wage cut. He can easily make a case for having to leave his job for health reasons, but that could be up to 6 months away and he will stay for as long as he can while we make a plan and see what happens with my job situation.

cant help wondering - since we have no other assetts (he has a small pension but they are welcome to it) if maybe going bankrupt would be such a bad thing though - the IVA doesnt seem to be on our side and our circumstances are going to change shortly with my job - a drop in wage is inevitable and then there is the added future problem with his job change so why waste money on the IVA which we know will fail before it ends?

We really didnt plan this or see it coming, but now it has, we have to think realistically about our next move.

If the IVA is in his name - but the morgage is joint - does that make it a JOINT bankruptcy?

Does anyone know how it would work in our circumstances - all the debt and the IVA is in his name apart from the morgage.

Confused and worried about it all ! What a mess :-(