I thought it was all over...

[JJSIDE]

Just an update on this thread. I tried a number of times to contact the IP by phone and by email, but they would not speak to me or respond to emails on this matter. In the end, I negotiated with the Official Receiver's solicitors, and rather than pay them £13K as they originally wanted, we agreed on a figure of £2K eventually, and I sent them a cheque for £2K in full settlement of their claim. that was a couple of months ago now and I have heard nothing more from the OR or their solictors. I am hoping it is the end of the matter now. I am very disappointed that the IP would not enter into any kind of discussion on this, but to be quite honest, I haven't got the energy or the motiviation to do anything about it now. I was thinking about refering the IP to the regulators, but I can't see what purpose that would serve now.

[Adam Davies]

Hi

What a nightmare for you and it is shocking to read that the IP would not return calls or emails.

I do hope that this is the end of it for you, please update if it isn't

Regards

[Broke of London]

I'm glad you've finally got it sorted! It seems unfair that your IP was unwilling to help resolve the situation and you have been left without an explanation of how this happened. But it may be better to move on and just leave this situation behind you x

[kazzafunk]

JJ - I do hope it's all over for you now. Although to be honest with you I could not just let things go with the IP side.

There are many many great IPs and some absolutely fabulous ones (who spend a great deal of time on here in their own time). I think if it was me I would have to complain to the regulator. Why should an IP ignore you? You were strong enough to sort this yourself but I wonder how many others suffer.

[JJSIDE]

I guess at the end of the day, there was nothing in it for the IP to respond - being cynical - there were no more outrageous fees they could charge to anyone, so they were not interested. And as the IVA was completed several years ago, I guess they thought their responsibility had ended.

[Shining]

I'm glad you've got closure but the way you were treated by your IP was not good and to be ignored is just downright rude. x

[dipsy]

JJside Glad you are sorted now. Maybe you should name and shame??? Just an idea!!!

[Niobe]

JJside - if you were dealing with the Official Receiver, were you in an IVA or bankrupt?

[Broke of London]

I believe JJ was in an iva personally and his/her company was bankrupt. Sounds to me like the OR was also at fault for not keeping the IP informed but that doesn't excuse the IP's rude dismissive behaviour.

[JJSIDE]

Yes, @BOL, @Harpie, I was in an IVA personally, brought about by the failure of my Limited Company. The OR was chasing me for money owed personally by me ( not disputed ) to my own Ltd company. This debt should have been included in the IVA, and both the OR and my former IP should have dealt with that more professionally in my opinion. Still, the IVA was completed successfully and the situation with the OR is now resolved - it cost me an extra £2000, on top of the £65000 I paid into the IVA during the 6 years. The IP took over £30000 in fees during the IVA - they would not get away with that these days, but seeing I ended up earning a lot more more than originally planned during the IVA, there was a lot more money in the IVA pot, they had the opportunity to take those outrageous fees and the IVA still gave the creditors 32p in the pound. They even arranged a creditors meeting without my knowledge to get their fee increase through. They are not a mainstream IP and in fact I have never heard their name mentioned on here, so I don't think that they do a lot of IVA's these days - my IVA started in 2004, when I think IP's were under a lot less scrutiny than they are these days. I do think that I was unlucky and that judging by the comments on this forum, the majority of IP's are highly professional and look after the Creditors and the Debtors interests with equal weight. They are also in business to make money too, but in my opinion, my IP was out to maximise their profits regardless of how that affected the creditors or me. But life is too short and the lesson for me ( and others reading this ) I guess, is that I should have been more forceful with the IP and put more pressure on them to tell me what they were doing and keep me informed more, instead of assumimng that they would sort things out in my interests too. Like a lot of people in debt, I think I carried that 'head in the sand' mentality into the IVA and felt very unsure about challenging the IP - I know now not to be afraid to challenge them.

[Daniel Griffiths]

WOW JJ

Let me be the only one to comment 30k in fees to administer an IVA, and not even properly administered at that, and after all that you still have to pay out £2000 you could not make it up.

[Broke of London]

Good thing the fees were paid by the creditors and not by JJ!

[Daniel Griffiths]

That,s right and the fact that JJ was able to pay more into the pot than original thought, obviously to repay his creditors or so he thought it gave his IP the opportunity to fill his boots with fees.

[MelanieGiles]

These fees do seem incredibly high - but as none of us know the real facts of the case I don't think any of us are in a position to comment. I am disappointed to hear that the IP concerned has refused to communicate with JJ- this is not an acceptable standard for professionals to conduct their business, but at the end of the day I am pleased to see that JJ has achieved conclusion. It would be interesting to know what dividend the other creditors received out of the IVA, compared to the dividend that the OR has achived for the creditors in the compulsory liquidation.

[JJSIDE]

Yes, I am pleased that a conclusion has been reached, even though some support and advice from the IP would have been nice, but in the end I did it myself. The fees were very high, but I had nothing to benchmark them against and did not feel in a position of strength to question them. The IVA was not in any way complicated at all, and I had little dealing with the IP over the 6 years. The only real communications were the yearly reviews, where they emailed me their I&E forms and I filled them in an returned them by email. I paid into the IVA on time, every month for 60 months. So how they managed to spend 300 hours working on my IVA is a mystery. Perhaps if they had spent some time investigating the potential claim from the OR some of those fees may have been warranted - but they failed to do that! So, it seems they took the opportunity to maximise their profits from the money in the pot, knowing that the IVA would be successful and acheive the predicted 32p in the pound, even after they took all that money in fees. As to the dividend the OR received, I think in proportion it was slightly higher than the other creditors, however, had the OR debt been included in the IVA, then I think the other creditors would have received slightly less in total than they did anyway. But thanks to all who have read and contributed to this thread, it gave me the confidence to negotiate with the OR's solicitors, knowing that I would be able to get advice on this forum if that had not gone well! Fortunately it did go well!