Happy to have an open discussion Dave - that is what the forum is all about.
I personally have not experienced difficulties with Egg - at worst they tend to cut our fees, but that is for me to take on the chin and I would never withdraw from a case on that basis.
MBNA are a different kettle of fish at the moment, and do seem to like clients chatting to them about their difficulties beforehand. I do not think that it would do you any harm to phone MBNA and tell them you are doing an IVA because you feel that it is the best way to treat all creditors equally, and that you doubt your other creditors would entertain a DMP. Make sure you document that conversation, and get the name of the person you have spoken to. Ask them to suggest what they would do in your circumstances, and send me a file note of that discussion so that I can rely on it as evidence if I need to (starting to sound a bit like a policman now!).
I have plans to be speaking to the Head of Insolvency at MBNA over the next few days, so may have more news as a result of that.
Finally, do not worry about Charging Orders. They cannot pop up as quickly as that, and if you get the threat of one which I do not think I can counter by getting your IVA in place prior to the final hearing, then I will get an Interim Order from Court stopping the action until the decisions of all your creditors have been received at a creditors' meeting.
I have a huge amount of respect for the solicitors used by Amex - they are firm (only looking after their client's interests at the end of the day) but fair and very commercial. We have a healthy working relationship with them, built up on mutual respect, and when Amex are voting for IVA's they are generally helpful.
And as a personal client of mine, you can pick up the phone to me whenever you want.
Regards, Melanie Giles, Insolvency Practitioner for over 20 years.
For further details contact me at
http://www.melaniegiles.com and view my IVA blog at:
http://melaniegiles.blogs.iva.co.uk