Hi richard79 and welcome to the forum.

Did your trust deed payments reduce from the amount that you were paying at the start of the trust deed?

Bankruptcy will not be possible unless the trust deed is brought to an end by your Trustee, but after three years of making payments probably is not in your interests anyway.

Hi TDA
At the start of the trust deed I was paying ?ú323 a month. I then lost that job and got a 30 hour a week job that was basically half my wage. I informed my ip and the amount that i paid every month was cut in half. I was not informed at this point that a possible extension may apply because of the reduced payments, as at that point that was all I could afford to pay. I then landed a good job with better pay which meant I could up my payments. Unfortunately I couldn't get them to the original ?ú323 a month. Due to the nature of the job I have to shell out over ?ú300 a month on childminders and also the way the economy is going life is beginning to be a struggle. I am currently paying ?ú250 a month my last payment is the 3rd of April then there after 12 months of ?ú256 has been added. Does not seem moral that when I was looking forward to getting back on an even keel, I understand I had payments to make but after 36 months of struggling I thought that would be it. What would happen if I refused to pay anymore after April? Would I be taken to court?

Hi Richard,

I am no expert, so I hope someone who is can confirm/debunk if I am right or wrong.

I think what's happened here is that your trustee has negotiated a payout to the creditors and your payments haven't quite met this requirement over the three years.

The creditors agree, or fail to disagree within the protection period, with the amount set out in your TD and your trustee is responsible for making the agreed payment.

The final payout to creditors can sometimes be more - for example if you get a pay rise or a better job and your payments increase, BUT, it will never be lower than the agreed amount.

I think this is what's led to your extension.

I certainly wouldn't stop - you have paid so much already. Are you really going to let the last three years go to waste?

Hello richard79.

Thank you for the extra information. ScotsLad has explained the situation very well.

I really think that the concept of an extension should have been explained to you at the time that you reduced your payments. I think that an extension in these circumstances is fair as the creditors only agreed to the trust deed on the basis of the information orginally provided to them. However it's certainly not fair for you to only find this out so late in the day. An issue of communication and service rather than morality I think.

If you refuse to pay you risk your Trustee resigning from the case. The money you have paid could then be used to pay the fees for the trust deed and some of your debt, and you would once again become fully responsible for the remainder of the debt. Alternatively you may be bankrupted, in which case you'll be expected to pay what you can afford towards your debts for three years. Basically it seems best (for you) that you see out the remaining months of the trust deed.

As trust deed assistant says, Scots Lad has explained this well. I am very impressed by how well-informed forum members are becoming!

One small point of clarification I would make though. It isn't really true to say that the total paid in to a trust deed will never be lower than originally offered - there has to be some room for balancing the interests of creditors with being fair to the debtors too. Whilst an extension is likely to happen if circumstances worsen and payments have to be reduced, this would have to be within reason. Tere is room for the creditors getting a bit less and trustees shouldn't extend a trust deed for an unreasonably long period.

Hi all
So basically I will have to accept the extension or Ill have debtors after me again. As tda said best to see out the remaining months, but its a blooming year for christ sake. I am so miffed at my ip for not telling me about extensions when my payments were being cut. If i basically knew it would have been extended I would have struggled to get the payments every month.

Sorry to hear that you were not informed of all the ins and out.

Stick around this forum though - there is a lot of great information!