Income Payment Agreement/Order

Rallynut

Hi
This is my first post so I will try to keep it concise.

I am 10 days away from discharged and my trustee has just asked me to complete another statement of income/expenditure saying it was "imperitive" to do so and giving me three days to do it. To date, I have provided everything that they have asked for and to be fair, they have always been reasonable.

I provided income/expenditure to the OR and then the Trustee at the start of Bankruptcy and the same when the trustee was appointed and was not asked to enter into any IPA at that time. My questions are as follows:
- Is this very late request an attempt to secure an IPA before I am discharged?.
- After discharge do I have to enter into an IPA?.
- If I have to enter in an IPA before discharge will this last three years. This would seem very unfair forcing me into an agreement which would then last nearly 4 years after my date of Bankruptcy. I thought that the idea of discharge was that you were then able to move on with life.

I hope that my questions make sense and I look forward to any comments.

Rallynut

luvchocolate

Hi I have heard this can happen, before discharge we have agreed to inform or/trustee of any changes to income etc during that first year, if your situation is the same as when you started then there have been no changes, but if they have changed and you have not made them aware and you now have a surplus then yes they can start an ipa prior to discharge and this will last for 36 months.
I hope all goes well x

fermi

The limiting factor is:

If you refuse to sign any proposed IPA before discharge, then the trustee must make any application to the court for an IPO before you are discharged.

In other words, the trustee here needs time to:

- Review your I&E and decide whether to go for an IPA/O.
- Assuming an IPA is appropriate, then time to propose and get you to sign one.
- If you refuse, get the application for an IPO in to the court before you are discharged, IF they decide to try that.

fermi

Q - Is this very late request an attempt to secure an IPA before I am discharged?.

Sounds likely. Or at least to see if one is possible.

Q - After discharge do I have to enter into an IPA?.

No. You can refuse.

Q - If I have to enter in an IPA before discharge will this last three years.

If you did, then it would last 3 years.

At no point do you ever HAVE to enter an IPA. You can refuse, and if that is before discharge the trustee would have to apply for an IPO if they wanted to continue.

Rallynut

Hi
Thanks for the responses. Your comments are very helpful and I will wait to see what response I get from the Trustee.
I am sure that I will more questions shortly.

many thanks

Rallynut

Things have moved on a bit since my last post.
My Trustee has responded to my last letter advising that:
As you may be aware, income payment orders/agreements can only be obtained prior to your discharge from bankruptcy. In the absence of notification from the official receiver that an application for suspension of your discharge has been made and an order obtained thereon, it is assumed that you will obtain your automatic discharge on 27 March 2013 i.e 12 months after your bankruptcy order.

They then go on to ask more questions about my affairs which will require time to answer and in particular ask questions about my wife circumstances which are personal to her. As I have declared joint incomes and outgoings they seem to want copies of loan agreements and credit card statements specific to her.

It looks on the face of it that I have slipped through their net and they are desperately trying to sort something out before the 27th. My view is that they have had my income/expenditure for at least 9 months and have never asked any questions until now.

I will provide the info that they have requested but it will not be much before the 27th. I am not willingly going to be entering into IPA days before my discharge, that binds me in for another 3 years especially as they have had the original info for 10 months or so.

I would appreciate any thoughts or comments.

fermi

If your wife is not BR, then he is under no obligation to supply anything that is personal to her. The only way your trustee could insist on it is to seek a separate court order compelling disclosure, which just a tad unlikely.

As said, even if they present you with an IPA to sign, you are under no obligation to do so.

Lou67

Genuinely hope OP, that you DON'T get lumbered with an IPA! Reassessing your finances just a few days before discharge, just stinks, and should be outlawed IMO.


Good luck

kepar

What should happen is that everyone should get a 3 year IPA, the months that they have no surplus count towards the 36 months.
What is unfair is those who have good jobs and have spare get penalised, whilst those who can get away having no income or low income for a year do not pay anything.
I believe that if this was the case then the % of spare taken could drop from 100% to around 50%. That I believe would be fair on everyone.

Rallynut

It seems very unlikely that the trustee will be able to prepare and present an IPA to me before the 27th. My wife is also going to ask them directly why they want specific information from her which they are not strictly entitled to.

My question is if the IPA cannot be proposed to me before discharge can the Trustee continue to seek agreement after discharge on the basis that they were negotiating before discharge?. My view is that if they come back with a proposal I would need time to consider it, undoubtedly diagree with it and certainly argue that they have had all of the basic information for 12 months and done nothing about it.

I suppose what I am asking in my case is, the 27th the final date that they can do anything even if they have started trying to sort something out before discharge.

I certainly agree that it is an underhand tactic but other things that they have done lead me to suspect that it is more likely to be an adminstrative error on their part.

debt_doctor

The IPA MUST be agreed BEFORE discharge from bankruptcy.

DD