Diary of an IP
Hi All
Just wanted to say that over the next few months I will be providing a running commentary of interesting things I pick up along my travels as an Insolvency Practitioner in practice. I will try and keep my postings topical and all comments will be based upon my opinions and not necessarily representative of the profession as a whole.
So for this week I found out that leading creditors representative TIX is reporting a 20% reduction in IVAs on last years figures over the last four months. This correlates with the introduction of their new protocol in September 2007, which has now largely been ratified by the joint BBA/BERR IVA protocol which as introduced on 1 February 2008. With bankrutpcy numbers remaining steady, I can only assume that people entering into Debt Management Plans is on on the increase - and a few of the DMP companies I work with have confirmed that they are busier than ever.
A couple of meetings I have had in my office this week with clients has reinforced the need to meet with self-employed clients on a face to face basis, which is actually a requirement under our rules of operation in any case, but one which I feel some Insolvency Practitioners are not abiding by. Self-employed cases bring many complexities, such as the calculation of tax claims, preparation of meaningul trading projections, and simply establishing whether there is a profitable business beind the client. If you are self-employed and your IP says there is no need to meet, I would look for someone who will - as you will need their support over a long time.
We are still seeing rejections from MBNA and Link Financial (who are a company which buys MBNA debt). I have one case at the moment which is at present rejected, but my staff are furiously trying to get additional votes from other creditors to enable this to be accepted. The offer is a good one, and my clients has made it clear that if the IVA is not accepted then she will have no hesitation to declare herself bankrupt. In my practice we never let a client go without a big fight, and we find things like this challenging as they enable us to interact with creditors and understand their reasons for objection. In this particular case, most of the debts are old and have been assigned or are with Debt Collection companies, so we are not dealing with our usual contacts within the creditor representatives.
I am attending a meeting tomorrow convened by a leading Debt Mangement Company who are trying to improve awareness of the operability of DMPs to mortgage brokers in Newport. So it will be interesting to chat to the mortgage industry to see how they feel things are at present and if there is any sign of the markets improving. With many people due to receive stiff increases on their mortgage payments over the next 12 months as they move from fixed to variable rates, we will have to carefully examine how to avoid this when presenting IVA proposals into the future.
That’s all for now, but please look at my blogs regularly as I hope to keep them updated with news and interesting comment.
