Welcome to the forum zebby.

I'm sure that your trustee will be delighted to take this payment in a single lump sum.

You wouldn't normally be directly responsible for fee payment, it would come from the funds that you're required to pay over.

Hi Zebby, a couple of good points there. First the letter about disbursements. Iam also in my final year (with knightsbridge) and they sent me a letter detailing their disbursements after my first annual review, i'm surprised you didn't get one before now. As far as your equity,if you say you could pay a lump sum, surely they will assume you had access to cash all along and then justify asking for even greater disbursements? I reckon that's what happened after they reviewed my first 12 months. I think it's best to plead poverty and just quietly see out your TD.

Welcome to the forum Superjames.

Zebby is asking about a third party providing the lump sum. That's totally legitimate and very common.

Well hullo TDA!
It's good to see you took notice of my reply. I get the bit about third parties providing legitimate help, but I think my reply was more about disbursements not necessarily being fixed (my trustee knows how to fix his alright, £111. per hour for asking questions, apparently) In my particular case, I had a successful PPI claim for £4,600. and all of a sudden the disbursements start racking up. I don't think it matters where the money comes from, if they can charge more, they probably will,after all they're in this game for profit.
Sorry if i'm getting a bit para, but from reading other posts,the more you complain, the more likely the trustee is to disappear,(holiday/extended sick leave/office juniors answering the phone).
Like Zebby iv'e still to have my final assesment where my trustee will go through 36 bank statements where I bet he will poke at the tiniest thing and potentially rack up his final disbursement, so if you say you could have money from a relative, regardless of the reason, surely the trustee would take the position that zebby is richer than most posters on this site. Certainly I feel that's the position my trustee has taken with me, but it's a matter of style how each individual deals with their TD. Thanks.

Hi again.

Some figures released a few months ago showed that a few trustees were regularly increasing their fees over and above the initial estimate, most were occasionally doing it (presumably because extra unforeseen work had to be done) and some hardly ever did it.

I doubt that your final review is going to involve anything like your trustee poking through three years of bank statements. Probably just looking at what's happened since your last review before closing everything down assuming nothing has changed that you haven't told them about.

Hi, me poking my nose in again, promise this is my last post on this thread!
If zebby gets the trustee to accept cash up front then that's a canny deal, cos then he won't be paying disbursements after the 36 month mark. I suppose it's a standard business model to accept cash upfront in case things go awry, so that could work out for all concerned. Also, as your'e paying more overall, they may go easier on the disbursements.
I hope you're right TDA, maybe if we play ball the trustees won't be so unforgiving, but it's a learning experience I suppose.

Hi Superjames.

It's not a question of getting the trustee to accept it. The trustee will be delighted to accept a lump sum payment from a third party.

Not that this makes any difference to the client usually. The fees and disbursements are drawn from the pot of contributions.

The main winners are therefore the creditors (who get paid more sooner), the client (who gets discharged sooner) and the trustee (who gets to shut down a case that has run to plan and in the best interests of the involved parties).

I don't think the "disbursements" issue that is concerning you is quite what you think.