I think there must be a crossed wire here somewhere, tommo.

Have you stuck to what was agreed at the start of the Trust Deed? Do you own any assets, such as a property with equity in it?

Hi tommo,

This must have come as a bit of a shock especially when you think you have completed it all and your being asked to pay an additional £9,000! It does sound like there may be crossed wires somewhere as Kevin has suggested.

The way a Trust Deed normally works is the fees in relation to the administration of the Trust Deed are taken from the pot of money that you pay in. The only way that fees and interest are paid on top of the total debt is if it's possible to repay all of the debts in full. This normally happens when a person acquires an unknown asset such as inheritance or a large PPI payment.

What was the original agreement you made at the start of your Trust Deed? Was it 48 payments or did it involve any assets like Kevin has asked?

Thanks for the reply guys,
The agreement to my understanding was 48 payments, I am a home owner but agreed at the start to pay £500 extra so they could not touch the house,
My circumstances have changed from the beginning of the trust deed & my payments have gone from £70 a month to over £600 a month,
I originally owed roughly £19000 & have now paid back over £17000,
This does not include roughly £4000 in PPI which has been sent to them & like I said they are still looking for £9000,
So from owing £19000 all in I am looking at paying back around £30000,
I thought the aim of a TD was to help people get out of debt.

Hi tommo,

Thanks for providing further information.

I can't understand why they are looking for a further £9,000 from you.

Your agreement was for 48 monthly payments (of whatever you could afford) with a £500 payment to protect your property. I can't therefore see how they can ask you to pay the fees and interest on top of that if you have completed all of your obligations. Like I advised, fees and interest are only normally paid when sufficient funds are realised to pay the total debt, plus interest and fees. I've not known of any cases that have been extended to ingather this by way of making extra monthly payments.

I would write to your Trustee and ask them to set out in writing why they have asked you to pay an additional £9,000 to cover their fees and interest. Tell them that your agreement was for 48 payments + £500 to protect your property and you have paid this.

Do you have a copy of the agreement from the start of your Trust Deed?

Hi tommo.

Each time your circumstances improved was your trustee immediately made aware and did your payment immediately increase?

Hi David, I have a copy somewhere & will find it, if not I will ask to be sent out a copy of it,
My trustee was made aware of the change of circumstances & the payments were increased to suit,
I can't get my head round having to pay thousands more than i originally owed,
If my circumstances changed from the start & it looked like I was going to repay nearly the full amount should my trustee not of contacted me sooner to let me know about the extra costs,
On my yearly review last September my trustee said with the payments I was making & with the PPI they received that would probably take me over the amount owed & that would be it completed, there was no mention of having to pay this extra money,
I dont want to argue with them without some knowledge of where I stand but they are the only ones who can sign it off so I find myself in a bit of a pickle as of what to do.

Hi tommo.

It's going to be hard to offer you any further advice until you have obtained an explanation from your trustee about precisely why they've extended it as they have.

As David has suggested, it might be a good idea to write to your trustee (personally) requesting a full explanation of the reasons for this.

Please let us know once you know some more and we'll be in a better position to try to help you.

Hi tommo,

As TDA has advised I am limited in the advice I can give you as I can't understand why your Trustee is asking you to pay an additional £9,000 to your Trust Deed after you have completed all of your obligations and payments.

Don't feel like you can't establish why they are asking for this sum of money or you can't ask questions because your knowledge is limited. Your Trustee or relationship manager should be able to explain this to you so that you can understand.

As I said, email or write to your Trustee to ask them to set out in a letter their reasons why they have asked for the additional £9,000 when you have completed all of your agreed payments.

Also ask them for the following:

- A full breakdown of all funds ingathered by them into the Trust Deed
- A summary of all creditor claims
- A summary of their fees and outlays to date

From this information you will be able to tell how much they have ingathered into the pot for creditors, how much your debt is and how much their fees are.

With this information we will be in a better position to provide you with advice.

This one certainly is a mystery, especially if the property has been dealt with.

My guess would be that the payments, plus PPI payments have provided enough to pay the debts in full, but not the interest and fees and the person who you spoke with has assumed that you are somehow liable ( wrongly) for these.

Like most of these things, best idea is to ask for a specific reason why the additional funds are required when you have met all of your obligations in the Trust Deed.

Mark

Again thanks for the advice, I have asked for the original agreement to be sent out so I know exactly what I signed up for,
Mark, on what you said are you saying that I am not responsible to cover the interest & the fees & am only required to pay back the creditors, is this the legal standing on all TD? Is there a link anyone could post to such affect?
With the money I have paid already plus the PPI this will already be around £2000 more than the money I originally owed.

Hi tommo

As normal it's difficult to comment with any degree of certainty without full access to the information. However that said, your responsibility is to adhere to what was agreed at the start ie Deal with the equity ( £500) and maintain the contributions agreed by both you and the Trustee. The PPI is an incidental thing to the agreement.

I can't think of a way a Trustee could ask for you to effectively pay the debt in full plus costs if these 2 matters have been completed.

Mark

The only way that you may have to pay towards the fees etc would be if you had not yet completed your 48 months of payments.

If you had paid in enough to cover the debts within say 42 months, then you would still need to pay for the remaining 6 months as it is not just the debts but the cost of the Trust Deed that need to be met if possible. However this would not normally apply beyond the 48 month point.

Best get a clearer explanation from your trustee first, as others have suggested and then we can advise further. Hopefully you were either just told the wrong thing by mistake or you misunderstood what they meant because they weren't clear enough.

I have received the original paperwork through & it states,
18 monthly payments of £67 & then 30 monthly payments of £223
Like I said my payments have gone up & I have been paying £670 for the last year
Here is the original scheme of division

RECEIPTS
Proposed Contributions - £7,896
Heritable property - £500
Total - £8396

PAYMENTS
Trustee's remuneration (including vat) - £3,016
Trustee's remuneration-Heritable property (including vat)£861
Agents Fees - £1,320
OTHER COSTS
Statutory advertising (including vat) - £57
Recording in books of council & session - £10
Fee for registration in register of insolvencies - £36
Accountant in bankruptcy supervision fee - £250
Property valuation (including vat) - £39
Bordereau - £25
Property search (including vat) - £28
Recording of discharge of inhibition - £30

TOTAL - £5,627

Available to ordinary creditors - £2,724
Less due to ordinary creditors - £27,223
Estimated deficiency - £24,509

The original amount I was due to pay back was £7,896 but I have now paid back £17,553 of the £19,508 debt I owed, I know it has been said that PPI is incidental but that was £3950 towards the debt bringing the total to £21503,
My trustee has said with the total debt owed of £19508 with interest of 8% & their fees they were looking to get £31,361 in total back, that is a difference of £9856 more than I have paid over the 4 years & is the number I started this thread about,
After a bit of discussion on the phone they have now said they are looking for £6000 to complete the trust deed, I dont know where they got this number from,
That is where I stand folk, I have paid £2000 more than I originally owed & they are asking for another £6000 to sign of my TD,
Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hi tommo.

I don't think we're in a position to add to previous comments unless you can find out some more information for us.

A trustee cannot extend a trust deed without good reason. They'll also not extend a trust deed purely for the purpose of collecting fees on top of debts.

Sometimes trust deeds are extended for reasons such as:

1 - Someone failed to disclose a change in circumstances which resulted in an improvement of circumstances. Arrears built up which need to be paid.

2 - Someone received a windfall of some sort which was due to their trust deed. It's been spent rather than handed over - so the trustee extends monthly payments to recover the sum.

3 - Someone owns or acquires an asset which is due to the trust deed. Rather than forcing the sale of this asset, the trustee allows an extension of the arrangement to enable the value of the asset to be collected through additional monthly payments.

We need to understand the reason why your trustee believes that an extension is appropriate. It might be something similar to the above three examples for example.