www.iva.co.uk

Due to a change in job we were unable to maintain the agreed monthly repayment for 4 months in 2008. we paid what we could by agreement and maintained contact with DFD throughout. We were verbally informed by DFD that we could make additional payments at the end of the IVA to repay the arrears. Now in year 4 of our joint IVA we have received a variation proposal from DFD asking us to agree to extend the IVA for a further 12 months to cover the arrears (3K) and "compensate for not introducing equity" This sounds like sharp practice to me. It is not mentioned in the original IVA that an extension will be sought if equity cannot be introduced (there was equity in 2005 but not any more due to the economic downturn etc). Are DFD allowed to do this??

It depends upon the terms of the specific IVA proposal, but I suspect not. They may, however, need to extend the term of the arrangement to pick up the arrears - but this ought to have been done at the time the arrears were incurred and not at this late stage.