OR hasn't allowed our claim for gas & electricity

GazHatesBanks

I do agree that the charges for gas and electricity are ridiculously high - I dread to think what your usage is! As a singleton in an old, damp end terrace my average monthly usage is around £20 electricity and £30 gas per month (both on prepay meters) and I consider that to be high! With the warmer months coming (hopefully) soon, I guess your usage should fall significantly.

If I read your post right, the gas is on prepayment meter but the electricity is still on a credit meter. Is that right? If the issue for the OR is with the gas, the utility company should be able to provide a breakdown of payments made since the pre-pay meter was installed.

It may be that the OR is equalling out your expenses over the year as you would not normally expect to have the same usage in summer as you do in winter (and the only current bills/payments you have all relate to the colder months).

It's also worth confirming that any pre-bankruptcy balance has been properly accounted for by the company (i.e. written off and not being collected).

I would suggest that you write to the OR with the details and request that they delay any decision with the IPA until the utility company have pulled their finger out and sorted out your account(s) - 1 month shouldn't do them any harm as you are still within the period where an IPA can be agreed, then you should get a truer figure of your actual costs. At least that way you are co-operating with the OR rather than (potentially) appearing to be in disagreement, but you can emphasise that you are unsure of your exact usage because of the utility companies !!!! up.

If you don't get any response from the utility company within the 40 days then write to them with an official complaint - this usually gets them to act quicker (it may be beneficial to copy in the OR as well).

My husband has had to change self employment 3 times since going bankrupt as he was getting paid £45 some weeks and £0 others

Maybe you can also tackle it from another angle. Have you regularly updated the OR with the change in earnings? If you agree the expenses that the OR has allowed (even if they're understated), a reduction in earnings will mean less of a surplus and may avoid an IPA altogether.

GazHatesBanks

FixitM wrote: »

He also said he's put the amount for mobile phones in with tv, broadband & telephone amount which he's limited to £60 per month in total. Does that sound right please (for family of 5)?

Probably a bit light:

• TV Licence: £12
• Phone/BB: £20-£30 depending on contract/supplier. They won't allow for any premium TV (sports, movies, etc.), but a basic phone/bb/tv package should be fairly similar in price.
• Mobile: £20-£30 Depends on how old the children are and how many mobiles you have. The standard cheapest tariff would be PAYG/SIM only at around £10 per month per adult, I don't know if they allow for childrens' mobiles or if they assume PAYG with very little usage

rockingbilly

FixitM wrote: »

He also said he's put the amount for mobile phones in with tv, broadband & telephone amount which he's limited to £60 per month in total. Does that sound right please (for family of 5)?

Thank you for your help.

Each and every examiner is autonomous. Some can be 'hard' some can be 'lenient' when it comes to agreeing an IPA.
At the end of the day this is down to how much or how little can be obtained for the benefit of the estate as well as ensuring that enough IPA's are set up to reach the monthly regional targets.
Does £60 a month seem reasonable for TV, broadband and 'phones?
For a start any 'paid for' channels (Sky etc) should not be allowed. So you either have freeview or freesat. TV licence is a must. Having multiple mobiles is a luxury in the eyes of some examiners. Either one Pay as You Go mobile or a landline with just the basic service would be more than enough. So £60? - £12 TV licence + £20 mobile ? Yes if I was still sat at my desk as your examiner I would be looking at maybe £45 a month - so £60 all in seems quite reasonable.

FixitM

Thank you for your replies. I honestly don't know exactly what the issue is other than the OR deems our claim for g & e too high. Hopefully Summer months will help as it's lighter (sometimes lights have to be on in the day, as the living room/ kitchen is dark in Winter) & heating will be less, and will have to rely on the drier less. My husbands earnings have thankfully gone up now since the was on the £0-£45 amounts, but as a result tax credits have reduced so we should be able to get by. He changed jobs at the end of January, hence having to do a new income & expenditure. The surplus the OR calculated last time came directly from his non-allowance of the gas & electricity, so it's not actually surplus we have.

The only thing I can think to do is to put down £50 per month emergency fund and this will have to be used for utilities. In terms of the arrears, maybe we can ring and explain we can't pay any arrears until after September when hopefully my husband will be discharged? If I can secure employment then when the 30 hours free childcare comes in, we should be in a better situation financially hopefully.

We were told by the debt councillor at Citizens Advice that the OR would allow for a TV package including the kids channels, as basically the kids have nothing else. So we are tied into this until October now, or else it's a £240 penalty. So I assumed that the mobile phones would be dealt with under a different category. My husband is on contract as is self employed, so needs inclusive calls etc.

I'd also (incorrectly) assumed that all ORs had guidelines they followed in terms of what they allowed, hence trusting what we were told about the TV package by the debt counsellor. Someone on here mentioned that the amount of proposed IPA last time seemed like it was just enough to cover their fee, so seems this OR may be target focussed.

So Rockingbilly, do you mean that only one of us should have a mobile phone? This is a massive learning curve.

Thank you so much for taking the time to respond.

silvercar

The only thing I can think to do is to put down £50 per month emergency fund and this will have to be used for utilities. In terms of the arrears, maybe we can ring and explain we can't pay any arrears until after September when hopefully my husband will be discharged? If I can secure employment then when the 30 hours free childcare comes in, we should be in a better situation financially hopefully.

If you have an IPA then my understanding is that it lasts for 36 months and any changes in circumstances in that time need to be reported to the OR and possibly the IPA adjusted. Being discharged would not effect this. If however you avoid an IPA, once you are discharged you no longer need to report changes in income.

FixitM

Yes, sorry, that's what I mean if he manages to avoid and IPA and get discharged. Otherwise I will be paying for childcare but also giving anything I earn to the OR, so will be financially worse off.

mwarby

Given the rest of thread and ORs stance i would think you'd be very luck to get. £50 a month emergency fund

FixitM

I thought the Government guidelines allowed for a £10 per person emergency fund? He has that as the amount allowed on his calculation sheet he sent through, so don't really see why/ how he could legitimately reject that. What would you do in the case of an emergency?