www.iva.co.uk

Is there a web site where the suggested I&E is printed so that I can see whether or not we have been allowed the suggested amount or not prior to completing my annual review form?

Here is a link to Andy's Forum

http://www.iva.co.uk/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=7238

Gives all the guidelines, copy and paste them into a word doc and then you can print.

Carl

In completing your income and expenditure, you should not really be referring to 'Guidelines'. You should state your actual Income and Expenditure.
I think viewing guidelines, it can be too easy to give in to the temptation of showing increased levels of expenditure on certain items because those guidelines suggest you are 'Allowed' a higher amount.
Others may view it differently, just my personal opinion.

Hi Lulu,

I agree with Cybus in that the best approach is to provide actual income and expenditure figures. Using guidelines can also encourage people to give unrealistically low figures which can lead to entering into unsustainable arrangements.

Kind regards,
Terry Balfour
IVA.com

Hi
I agree with Cybus in that your expenditure should be just that,your expenditure.
However creditors seem to stick to the CCCS guidelines so the result is that if you over budget they end up asking for more disposible income at the creditors meeting.
The industry has moved from honest and accurate proposals towards inflated expenditure proposals that allow for creditor squeezing
Regards

I was not a fan of the guidelines when I first came across them, but having now had a copy on my desk for the last couple of months I find them workable and in my experience it is quite rare to find that clients actual expenditure is materially higher or lower than the figures quoted.

IPs should definately not rely upon the guidelines when advising clients, but should justify by exception where actual areas of expenditure exceed the prescribed limits, so that creditors can take their own view.

are there checks and balances, so to speak, annually by the IP to see if your agreed expenditure is going into the areas you signed up to?

for example, if you agree £20 per month for shoes for the family, are you expected to stick to that and 'prove' it's validity each year?

rickyg

Most IP's will want to see things like bank statments to confirm Water, Gas, Electric, C/Tax mortgage and rent payments.

But things like clothing, personal hygiene are guidelines and if you exceed these guidelines then there needs to be a valid explantion for this which may need to backed up with evidence if they are seen to be unreasonable.

Carl

OK.

I had this scenario in my mind where you have to keep each receipt and annually account for the categories that you have agreed, expenditure-wise.

So, if you agreed £20 per month [£240 per year] for clothes and only spent £200 that year, you'd get knocked down to the lower level for the following year.

Apart from wage-slips, I rarely ask my clients to produce other documentary evidence at the time of annual reviews. I generally trust them to provide me with accurate information, but we would query material differences if we felt there was a need to.

Ricky - it is a good idea to keep details of your expenditure but not to get obsessed by it. I would certainly expect clothing expenditure to increase as the years went on and not reduce, and IP's simply do not have the time to audit every area. As I said it boils down to trust and repect at the end of the day, and as you guys have made sacrifices to ensure your creditors are repaid as much as possible, there has to be a degree of flexibility in the arrangement to allow you incentive to continue.