Hello ldc.

There is no single answer to your question really.

It's going to come down to any maternity arrangements, loss of income, increased costs and the attitude of your Trustee who has to balance your interests and those of your creditors who agreed to allow your trust deed to become protected.

You may wish to ask your trust deed firm how they generally view similar situations which I'm sure arise quite often.

Hi, my husband has a trust deed and we have had twins since the trust deed began so we now have 4 children under 5 and his trustee will not allow for it at all so he still has to make full payments.

Hi gillianr2 & ldc.

A trust deed payment should always be based upon affordability which will obviously change following the addition of a new member of a family. It seems strange and unusual that this hasn't been factored in for gillianr2 and her family and hopefully is something that is not common.

The question in most scenarios would be whether a reduction in trust deed payment following the addition of a new family member might result in an extension of the trust deed.

It would be great if one of our experts could explain the considerations required of a trust deed firm in such a scenario...

Yes I hopeyou dohave more luck, it does seem that my husbands trustee is very strict on everything so far and wont allow for manoevre at all. My husband missed some payments (with the trustee knowing about it) and they are now making him pay £51 more per month until next Sept to make it up even though they know we can't afford it especially with 2 extra children, theysaid the extra child benefit and tax credits we receive should cover the cost of it and the extra cost of the twins. The extra we get is about £130 so take the £51 off they are leaving us with £70 for 2 babies a month. The formula per week alone for us is £40.

A trustee should only be looking for what is reasonably affordable from your husband's income. If there is a change such as this then they should review affordability and adjust the contribution payments if necessary (and possibly extend the term).

It sounds like your husband's trustee is arguing that the original amount should still be affordable. At the end of the day, if your husband disagrees then the trustee could view this as a breach of his agreement and could seek to terminate the trust deed, or petition the court to have your husband sequestrated. Your husband would have the right to argue his case to a sheriff, but I guess if he doesn't wish to risk any of this happeneing then he may have no alternative but to try and find the full payment they are looking for each month.

Yes Kevin that is the view the trustee is taking. They say that as my husband agreed to pay back a total of £5400 plus £6500 for the car and £500 for the equity in the house then by the end of the trust deed he must have paid that amount hence the extension for the car and the extra £51 per month until next Sept. When I was in a td I fell pregnant with our first child and the trustee I had was excellent inbeing flexible with me, my payments were halfed for 9mths and the trust deed still ended after 36mths, my car wasn't takenin to account at all (it was worth maybe £3500/4k) but it was a different trustee altogether.

This really illustrates the differences between trust deed firms in the way they work with people and the way they exercise judgment on the many issues that can arise for which there are not black or white answers.

It's easy to think of a trust deed as a "product" but for years now we have read in this forum just how different peoples experience can be according to the firm that they choose for a trust deed.

It's not easy to compare firms in advance, but it's worth taking steps to do whatever you can to select a firm of which you have some reason to believe will do a good and fair job.

is there not a rule for this matter? Surely it must be a common occurance. I think it is unfair the companies can deal with issues like this in different ways. Especially if it can result in forced sequestration! I thought the whole point of a td is that you pay what you can afford over the agreed period. If things get worse finacially, why should you be put in worse off position, is this seen as increased expence that was your own decision to have??

Just a thought, if the reduced income(whatever the cause) had been the amount demonstrated at the outset, would the monthly cost have been set lower or would the term be lengthened at the creation of the trust deed?

Thats a good point, the td would be extended to achieve the sum that makes the td viable

I think one thing that needs to be borne in mind is the interests of creditors. They agree to trust deeds on the basis of what is offered and they also agree because the Trustee has a role to take their interests into account.

If creditors began to believe that their interests are being overlooked they'd likely stop allowing trust deeds to become protected.

The other thing to bear in mind is that many of these situations that arise come in different shades of grey rather than being black or white. Allowing a Trustee judgment is vital when weighing up the interests of debtors and creditors. It simply wouldn't be possible to create firm rules for every scenario.

I'm not suggesting that ldc is doing this, but imagine a scenario where someone chooses to have a child after signing a trust deed knowing that it will leave them unable to make any substantial payment to their trust deed. Wouldnt that in effect leave the creditors paying for the costs associated with bringing up the child and writing off a lot of debt as well if the arrangement wasn't extended?