Hi all,
Long time reader, first time poster. Firstly I'd like to apologise for this long post. I want to detail my experience in a way that others can get information that isn't always that easy to find, especially about PayPlan.
Short story: My IVA is now complete, after my creditors accepted my proposal to pay off my final year (year 6) in one lump sum. Three weeks (yes just three!!) after paying the sum to PayPlan, I received my Completion Certificate in the post (I had the biggest smile all day!)
Now the long story, and why my creditors shot themselves in the foot by not accepting a previous offer 6 months previously:
I got an IVA as I had debts (£16,000) after my business started to fail approximately five years ago. I decided to go with PayPlan after advice from my mother (I had previously no idea an IVA was even a thing). About six weeks after contacting PayPlan my IVA was approved by 75% of my creditors (if I remember correctly). My IVA ticked along nicely for a number of years.
At the end of each year, I had to do an Annual Review which consisted of a five minute phone call detailing my expenses. As I am self employed, all I had to submit was a yearly Tax Return. No bank statements at all, which I was surprised at - it's nice that it seems more a trust relationship between the two.
A few years ago I had some difficulty and wasn't able to always pay on time. I once went three consecutive months without paying (and buried my head in the sand about it) - I was sent a letter than I would soon be in breach of the terms if I didn't pay or contact. I managed to pay it off, but was glad that it wasn't an automatic breach and cancellation of my IVA - good on PayPlan, I imagine it was within their rights. I did this a few times (missed payments that is, not three consecutive) and managed to get up-to-date each time.
Now the interesting part: In October of last year, as I own a property, the equity clause came into effect. I was not having the best time of my life at that period and was struggling mentally in various ways, the effects of which the IVA exacerbated. So I decided enough is enough, let's see if I can end this early. I contacted PayPlan to offer a variation to end the IVA. I offered to sell my property only on the condition that they would accept £6000 (there was about £30,000 equity after sale) as a full and final payment. For those that don't know, you are not obliged to sell your property, this was my decision (at least not with PayPlan.
It took about 7 weeks to get a date set (1st December). So in total it took about 11 weeks from initially offering to getting a meeting date. My advice to those wishing to offer a variation is to keep on at PayPlan as much as possible (don't assume that it's being worked on). It doesn't seem like it's laziness on their side, it's more of miscommunication. I think I had to explain my offer to three different people/departments before it finally got to the end stage of writing the proposal for me to sign. Previous to this I had had no problems with PayPlan.
Now my creditors had the option of accepting £6,000 or risking my remortgage failing (as it does with 99% of IVAs - a very good thing I think, especially with PayPlan as I will explain shortly). I am on a very low income at the moment, so my yearly contributions came in at about £2100. A week before the meeting date I was contacted to say that one of my creditors would only accept £16,000. I flatly refused of course, as I was only doing this to end it early, I didn't have to do this. So my meeting was rejected. Later I would find out that it was rejected by 51%! of creditors (which i'm now kind of grateful for).
After this, the next stage was the equity clause: I was to attempt to remortgage and provide proof I had tried with two companies. I had previously got a valuation of the property for the previous variation, which PayPlan accepted (none of this 'you have to use a valuer that we provide'). PayPlan required only screenshots of attempts to remortgage. As most major mortgage companies don't offer to IVA customers it was simply a case of going onto the first page of each application, ticking I'm in an IVA and providing a screenshot of each (both of which then displayed that they don't offer to IVA customers). That was it... It was the first two I tried (Lloyds and Halifax i think) - my current mortgage provider didn't offer remortgages to IVA, so I was instructed to find two others.
My IVA was then extended by a year a few weeks later, as per the clause. Now I still had two months left on the current year, so after an offer from my parents to pay the remainder of the required payments, I contacted PayPlan once again for a variation. The offer was to pay the total number of payments remaining in one lump sum plus £100 as an incentive - with payments reducing by each month paid before the meeting). Same thing again, had to keep on at PayPlan, though this time it was quicker, only around 8 weeks to the variation meeting date. No emails in the final week (was a good sign I thought based on past experience). And the day came and it was approved.
I awaited the final amount on paper to be paid in the post, which came three days after the variation meeting. The amount (£2100) was paid the same day and three weeks later I received the Completion Certificate! An absolutely fantastic time-frame from PayPlan, considering they themselves said it could take between 3 - 6 months. As I had a land lock on my property (required by IVA), my final query to PayPlan was to make sure that the lock had been removed from the Land Registry (received a reply two days later to say they had received confirmation from the Land Registry that it had indeed been removed).
One thing that surprised me, after reading about some horror stories of waiting was that an ongoing PPI Claim would hold up the Certificate. In this case I was told that as the full and final was accepted, any PPI payments paid to PayPlan in the future would be paid back to me if there were to be any. So it didn't factor into this at all. Maybe full and finals work differently?
Creditors shouldn't pass up the chance to earn a fair amount of money for giving a guy peace of mind (and shaft 49% of creditors in the process). The offer was more than fair considering my likelihood of being able to remortgage and current monthly payments. So I saved 50% of what I had previously offered. One interesting thing though, two major banks accepted the previous proposal. It was a company that bought two of my debts that had the 51% stake who rejected me.
My PayPlan score: 4/5 - for the most part fantastic, though communication between departments is something to be desired.
I apologise for the long post (not even sure that a post this long is allowed...) but was hoping to get in as much detail as possible about my experience (I've probably missed some as well). I will be looking on here for a few weeks so if anyone has any queries about my experience, feel free to ask.
Thanks to all those that have helped others (as those responses helped me also).
I wish you all the best in your IVA adventures.
