www.iva.co.uk

Hi all

My husband and I are just coming up to our 1st annual review and have been sent the income and expenditure sheets for this last year, and the living expenses sheet, our earnings have varied quite a bit from what they estimated, we haven't overall earned anymore but we are both self employed and I have earned less than expected and my husband slightly more, although our monthly earnings are erratic and not like the neat equal monthly earnings on the sheet but at the end of the year we appear to have earnt much the same however having done a year in the budget of the IVA we have found some of the living expenses are out and have left us borrowing from family, we have ammended the food and cleaning budget, clothes, sundries, vehicle maintenence and we realised we have forgotten to allow for dentist, hairdressing, home repairs or pocket money for our daughter so we have added these on now, we are worried how these will be questioned yet this last year we have needed to borrow family money when the laptop broke costing £280, the washing machine went costing £300 the cat got sick costing £200 which has made things tight at times.

My husband also was in a van crash on his way to work, not his fault, he was driven into and his van was written off, his van is essential for work as a carpenter however the value of his written off old van was not enough to buy a new van with so we had to borrow £800 from family towards a new van, we received a cheque from the insurance for £1200 however the new Van cost £2000, without it he would have been unable to work, this won't be classed as a windfall will it? We have had to pay family back over the year for this and it has been included in his business expenses on his tax return.

We have also found that we have earned less than expected and are likely to be liable for a tax rebate as my husband is taxed 20% on everything at source and his personal allowance is not considered until his tax return, our figures are also lower than we predicted for tax credits making us also liable for a rebate from them, we understand it that anything we receive from either of these means will be seen as a windfall, which is fine but in september my husband was out of work for 2 weeks and we had to borrow 1000 from my Mum and Dad to get by and pay everything, as of yet we've only been able to pay back £250 due to the tight budget of the IVA and we would hope should we receive any rebates to be able to clear the £850 or some of it we owe them with a rebate before giving the rest to creditors, would we be allowed to do this? By lending us the money they ensured we were able to pay the IVA in turn!

We're hoping that by adjusting our living expenses now we have a better idea of them year one done to avoid the need to borrow in future.

Can anyone advise on these things?

Just tell your IP everything that you have shared her on the forum, and I am sure the review will go well.

The insurance monies should not be treated as a windfall. Your IP may allow you to repay the family loans from your tax and benefits rebates - but we would always rather our clients asked about this at the time rather than us finding out about it after the event.

Do you have a reasonable relationship with your IP firm?

I find the reviews as stressful as when we were first accepted. Good luck and let us know how you get on x We borrowed from a family member for extensive car repairs rather than missing a payment and was told we could pay them back from any extra payment s accrued so we have done so via my husbands over time .

Thank you for the replies, we're with Duff and Phelps, we haven't spoken to them much throughout the year as we've kind of kept our head down and kept paying but they've always been approachable when we have.

I'm sure it's all just my nerves as the IVA was a lifesaver when approved so we desperately want all to go well, it's been frustrsting having to borrow from family when my husband was out of work but construction is a tricky trade at the moment and with a mortgage to pay and a 3 year old daughter to feed it was necessity as we didn't want to fall behind on the Iva in the 1st year.

Melanie would you know where we stand now with take home figures after tax where my husband is being paid fortnightly via a cheque which at halifax takes 5 days to clear, but we were used to being paid weekly before now so to go 3 weeks for 2 weeks money in the IVA budget is further than we can stretch to where the bills are sporadic across the month, we've tried to apply for a basic cash account with Lloyds tsb so the cheques would clear the next working day but where declined over bad credit so to get the money fortnightly we will need to cash his cheques at a cheque convertor loosing 5% of his wages, this is more necessity than just wanting the money sooner, we simply can't manage that long without wages and are reluctant to have to ask family again for help when we still owe them some back, will we be able to put forward the post converted cheque figures as our income each month?