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Topic starter
20/09/2011 8:54 am
Is it possible to change your trustee as you have no faith in him and feel that you are being taken for a ride.
The reason i ask is that at the original meeting with the trustees rep it was stated that the fees would be in the region of £5 to £6k. My trustee managed to get to £5k in the first six months, stating that he had extra work to do. His fees are circa £12k for four & a half years work and estimated (by him) to be £20k by the time the deed is discharged. (deed extended as i didn't have the money to pay the £12.5k equity in the house and couldn't borrow the money due to the financial climate).
I requested an audit through the Insolvency in Bankruptcy and surprise, surprise the audit consolidated his fees to the penny.
There have been no court fees for any of his work and feel that i'm just being taken for a ride in this deed. Total due to creditors is £58k and i've aready put £70k into the pot and still 16 months to go.
20/09/2011 9:33 am
Hello ianr100.
I'm afraid that there is no real way to change your Trustee. The only possibility would be to cease complying, in which case you may well be bankrupted rather than being free to find a new Trustee. You'd also be exposed to starting payments for three years again.
It's hard to comment on the fees as we're unaware of what work has been done. However if the Accountant in Bankruptcy has audited the fees and found them to be justifiable that's a pretty good sign that all is OK. I do recognise that fees of this level can seem extraordinary to people though (normally they will be £2500 to £4500 plus outlays and VAT, but there are cases which present a much higher workload than normal).
Qualified Debt Adviser & Forum Administrator - Ask me anything about Trust Deeds 
Topic starter
20/09/2011 11:49 am
Ok, many thanks TDA, i'll just have to grin & bear it.Not going to start again, been through too much with this lot. If i'd known what would have happened, i'd never had gone through with it.
20/09/2011 4:22 pm
The only other way you can challenge the fees would be by raising an action in the Sheriff Court. However, it might well be very costly and ultimately unsuccessful. Best getting proper legal advice before doing so.
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Topic starter
20/09/2011 7:14 pm
Just as a matter of interest, is there a regulated set of fees for trust deeds. If there isn't, it seems that there is no regulation involved. As in my case, it's not really transparent apart from reading their balance sheet.
For the record, in the situation now, i pay a monthly installment, someone checks it has arrived to the account, someone double checks it then the trustee adds his mark to say that it's all ok. A money making scheme really considering i'm dealing with so called professional accountants (all this info taken from trustees annual statement)
20/09/2011 7:34 pm
Hello ianr100.
At the start of the trust deed the creditors can object to the fees proposed. The agents that they use to vote on whether trust deeds should become protected make trust deed providers aware of what level of fees they'll accept.
Clients also agree to the fees at the start.
As you've pointed out the Accountant in Bankruptcy can check that fees are reasonable if asked to (creditors sometimes do this).
There are plenty of checks and balances, but I do understand that the costs/fees involved can seem very high. A Trustee and his/her staff have chargeout rates similar to those that might apply to other professionals such as lawyers which can add up, especially where the workload associated with a case is higher than usual.
Qualified Debt Adviser & Forum Administrator - Ask me anything about Trust Deeds
Topic starter
21/09/2011 8:32 am
Ok, thank you. Looks like because i had a lot of assets to collect and to pay a substantial return, my fees have increased.
