Payplan

shinner

It is not a quick process and you do know that can take a while to sort out.I maybe wrong but from my understanding they do not pay your creditors much initially anyway. I suggest you contact debtors tell them you cant afford to live and are seeking advice offer a £1 token payment while you decide. This to all your creditors so that is £4

shinner

Please dont get stressed it will make matters feel worse. I know easy said than done but please look into all options before doing anything and speak to creditors even if by letter they will work alongside you and would rather help you stick to your guns with payments

UpToMyNeckInIt

aliscrapper wrote: »

Just been looking at this website for insolvency practitioner reviews
http://www.iva.com/

I've put forward a request for the following companies to contact my husband to see what they think is the way forward as they are among the top five recommended.

Varden Nuttall
IVA Advice Company (Melanie Giles)
Clear Debt

Then I noticed that this website is sponsored by "Vincent Bond & Co" which is a debt management company hubby came into contact with and found that they did not answer questions directly and skirted around what we were asking.

Is there any place for Insolvency Practitioner reviews that aren't sponsored by an Insolvency Practitioner themselves?? Thanks

I would not worry too much about who the site is sponsored by who (who else is going to set one up?), but well worth reading the customer reviews though. In terms of IVA firms, there appears to be a world of difference between the aparently good and the aparently great.

Would say Melanie Giles is worth a call as I have read nothing but good feedback about her. She is not my IP incidentally, but she offers excellent advice on another iva forum, and proports to act in her customers best interests. All 3 firms seem like a reasonable shortlist however.

Try to choose a smaller company. You are more likely to be treated as a customer rather than a number. I am with a firm who were excellent at getting the IVA up and running (amazing how good the customer service is when there is a prospect of earning a few grand), but are poor at getting back to me now that I am trapped - submitted my paperwork for my 1st annual review back in May, not heard a dickie-bird since for example. (Oh well, no news is good news I suppose).

Important that you feel comfortable with your chosen firm, as the iva is a 5-6 relationship that you will not be able to leave unless you fail the agreement.

Me, I'm stuck with my firm. Just got to make the best of it. But I wish with hindsight that I had contacted a couple more companies and read some reviews.

Best wishes.

aliscrapper

shinner wrote: »

It is not a quick process and you do know that can take a while to sort out.I maybe wrong but from my understanding they do not pay your creditors much initially anyway.

Yes I saw from the review website I was looking at from start to finish you could be looking at up to 8 weeks. Most companies seem to take the first payment of IVA to cover their fees

I suggest you contact debtors tell them you cant afford to live and are seeking advice offer a £1 token payment while you decide. This to all your creditors so that is £4

Hubby did contact his debtors and pay the minimum payment and ask them to freeze the interest about 3 weeks' ago - which they did for the period of a month. Do you think that they would accept token payments for another month giving us longer to research so we make the right decision???

aliscrapper

UpToMyNeckInIt wrote: »

I would not worry too much about who the site is sponsored by who (who else is going to set one up?),

This is true - never thought about it like that - thanks!

but well worth reading the customer reviews though. In terms of IVA firms, there appears to be a world of difference between the aparently good and the aparently great.

Yes the difference is scarey!

Would say Melanie Giles is worth a call as I have read nothing but good feedback about her. She is not my IP incidentally, but she offers excellent advice on another iva forum, and proports to act in her customers best interests. All 3 firms seem like a reasonable shortlist however.

The one thing that drew me to Melaine Giles besides the good reviews is that on the front page of her website she clearly details what kind of fees to expect.

Try to choose a smaller company. You are more likely to be treated as a customer rather than a number.

Great idea - thanks!

I am with a firm who were excellent at getting the IVA up and running (amazing how good the customer service is when there is a prospect of earning a few grand), but are poor at getting back to me now that I am trapped - submitted my paperwork for my 1st annual review back in May, not heard a dickie-bird since for example. (Oh well, no news is good news I suppose).

Everything crossed for you! What is the annual review - is it just a case of checking your financial paperwork and checking that your money hasn't increased in an attempt to increase the amount you pay back thru the IVA???


Important that you feel comfortable with your chosen firm, as the iva is a 5-6 relationship that you will not be able to leave unless you fail the agreement.

Me, I'm stuck with my firm. Just got to make the best of it. But I wish with hindsight that I had contacted a couple more companies and read some reviews.

Best wishes.

Thanks again for giving us the benefit of your experience.

shinner

Make sure any securerd debt is paid in full get in touch with creditors maybe pay £20 off each debt ? I know that is £80 but they are likely to prefer this to a pound.
Have you rang national debtline?

aliscrapper

shinner wrote: »

Make sure any securerd debt is paid in full get in touch with creditors maybe pay £20 off each debt ? I know that is £80 but they are likely to prefer this to a pound.
Have you rang national debtline?

The only secured debt is our mortgage which is up to date.

Definitely thinking contacting creditors again is something we need to do. Just spoken to Mind and they suggested that altho
this is not a legal approach and is entirely dependent on the goodwill gesture of creditors if we could demonstrate that hubby's mental health lead to the situation with medical back up from GP, etc we might be able to write to creditors and ask what they could do to help. There is a form that we could get GP to fill in. This form I was told is used by creditors generally to assess mental health impact on the debt but we could use it as those with the debt.

Info here and form here

shinner

I have always been honest and find they have been good to me. post details on debt free more knowledge than me prob be able to advise better. You could post SOA for advice.

UpToMyNeckInIt

...yes, all IVA's involve an annual review process. As you correctly assume, this is to make sure that your IVA payments are still relevant to your financial circumstances.

aliscrapper

Just wanted to post a quick update and say thank you all for giving such great advice.

We've chosen to go with Melanie Giles. We nearly went with Varden Nuttell but their hard sell put us off using them.

Really impressed with Tina who works directly under Melanie. She has told us so many useful things that a lot of the other providers did not (like the fact that you can take a 6 month break from the IVA in financial hardship as long as it is agreed by the creditors) She is always checking if we are okay. She has given us her e mail address and mobile phone number so easy to make contact with.

Tina is drawing up an SOA and says that a lot of companies do a SOA that they know will get rejected by the creditors; so that they have to do extra work that they can charge you for. Tina was speaking to hubby yesterday and saying that they have a 99% success rate of IVA proposals being accepted; so hoping we will be one of those too.

Thanks again for all your help. It is so much appreciated.