A large number of profitable claims have already been undertaken and continue to be undertaken against financial institutions with regards to Payment Protection Insurance (PPI). Every client who believes that they might have been miss-sold a PPI policy is eligible to make a claim against the loan company and a lot of such persons already have garnered recompense from the offending financial institutions.
In the situation of a person entering into an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA) where one or more finance companies supplied Payment protection insurance in the past, the borrower may make a claim for the purpose of compensation against any lender which miss-sold such a insurance policy. The fact that payment of the Payment protection insurance premiums could possibly have contributed to the borrower’s lack of ability to repay his or her liabilities and compelled the consumer to enter an IVA is not pertinent.
Should the individual have a PPI compensation claim in place prior to entering into an IVA, any type of reparation made while the Individual voluntary arrangement is up and running will undoubtedly be regarded as a windfall and any monies received all through the duration of the Individual voluntary arrangement must be given to the Individual voluntary arrangement for the advantage of loan providers. The terms and conditions of the IVA proposal can allow for the financial institution who is handing over the compensation, to counterbalance the disbursement against any debt outstanding to that creditor and then any excess of the payment that remains has to be deposited into the IVA for the benefit of the remaining creditors. The contribution of some or all of this type of windfall to the debtor’s IVA doesn’t imply that the consumer should be able to cease making the established regular contributions over the full timeframe of the IVA just as originally arranged. Nor can the person in debt decrease the amount of any other lump sum payment into the IVA that has been proposed and agreed upon originally, for example value in property. The compensation funds merely raise the level of the debts that financial institutions will have paid back to them.
If the borrower makes the claim for PPI compensation after the IVA has commenced, any compensation paid would be treated as a windfall in a similar manner. It is entirely the debtor’s decision whether to make any such claim during the life of the IVA. Indeed the debtor is legally entitled to defer making a PPI compensation claim until the IVA is completed and to then retain any award made, without being obliged to pay any creditors, since all debts will have been written off by that stage. However, the debtor would have to consider the possibility that the right to make a PPI compensation claim could lapse, due to the Statute of Limitations.
The treatment of PPI compensation claims, based on miss-selling of the policies, gives rise to considerable debate, as to whether all creditors are treated equally and fairly when the monies from a successful claim are distributed. To allow the ‘miss-selling’ creditor to offset the compensation against the debt before treating the available balance as a windfall for the benefit of all creditors seems to be the standard approach and the least unfair practice.
On the other hand, the supervisor of the IVA stands to gain by encouraging the debtor to pursue the PPI compensation claim, where the supervisor’s fees are based on realisations in the IVA. The greater the realisations, the greater the fee the supervisor may charge, if the supervisor’s agreed fee is based on a percentage of realisations.
The decision to proceed with the PPI compensation claim rests solely with the debtor and it would not be surprising if a debtor in this situation resisted any encouragement or pressure by the supervisor or indeed by creditors (to pursue the claim) until the IVA had run its course, in the expectation of being able to retain the full amount of compensation paid, when creditors would have lost all rights to a share in the proceeds. Whatever about the ethics of any decision to delay making a PPI compensation claim, the debtor is legally entitled to defer the matter until the IVA has been completed.
However, many debtors in IVAs may feel that they want to maximize the amount of their debt that they will repay to creditors and for that reason may want to pursue their PPI compensation claim forthwith and contribute any funds thus obtained to their IVAs. There is one other benefit which arises from doing this: if they run into trouble in making their monthly contributions to their IVA, due to loss of employment, ill health or other reasons, creditors may consider their PPI compensation lump sum payment to the IVA in a favourable light and deem the terms of the IVA to have been fulfilled, particularly where the originally promised dividend in the IVA has been achieved or exceeded. In such circumstances, creditors may agree to a reduction in the amount of the monthly payments to the IVA or even a reduction in the term of the IVA. On the other hand, if the debtor willfully delays making the PPI compensation claim, intending to defer that decision until the IVA has been completed, and if creditors are aware of the matter, then they might take a less lenient view of the debtor’s inability to adhere to the terms of the original IVA proposal and fail the IVA, knowing that they could pursue the debtor for payment of any outstanding debts in the future, when the PPI compensation claim will be made.
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