# about to go to a PIP/Financial planner/ any experience of Prima Finance/IMHO



## Neoman (16 Mar 2014)

Hi, 
I am about to go to a PIP/Financial planner/Negotiator to take over negotiations with my Mortgage and Unsecured debt. 

I would like someone with a proven track record. I spoke with Prima but am a little nervous,they are very anxious for my business and work by negotiating with my credditors & agreeing a single monthly payment which I make to them, and they then pay my credditors minus their fee...in a deal lasting 5 - 7 years.
This gives me the itches as I dont want to pay money over to a intermediary. What if they get in trouble themselves and havent been paying my bills. It seems like a reversal of a debt collection company. They take the first months payment and then 15% per month.

I have also contacted Irish Mortgage Holders Organisation, and am awaiting their information pack.

I see a company called Money bloom in Drogheda have negotiated very favourable terms for a client.

Has any one any positive evperience/negative experiences.

Ideally I want someone to negotiate on my behalf for a fee...and then I make the payments myself.


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## Brendan Burgess (17 Mar 2014)

Have you approached MABS? 

Why pay a commerical company when MABS will do it for free?


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## postman pat (17 Mar 2014)

Brendan Burgess said:


> Have you approached MABS?
> 
> Why pay a commerical company when MABS will do it for free?



Thats true about MABS, some of these other companies can compound your problems.


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## Neoman (17 Mar 2014)

Yes, I went to MABS around the end of 2012. they prepared statements of affairs which I forwarded to all lenders, who , with the exception of AIB have now all sold their loans to Cabot/Avant/pepper.
Mabs advised paying as much as I could against my mortgage(which I have done) and paying nothing to anybody else. They advised to let it run its course/legal action or whatever ensued as you cant take money from a stone.
I voluntarily surrendered our old family home which we were unable to sell after moving house in 2007. IBRC have now sold this leaving a shortfall of 155k. My house mortgage is also with IBRC.
I dont believe MABS will be able to negotiate settlement arrangements.
I could be wrong.

I have had all this going on now for 5 or 6 years and see no end in sight. No one is taking legal action and I've had it with letters and phonecalls and statements of affairs constant worry.


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## Neoman (17 Mar 2014)

I'm quite happy to go for insolvency but I have heard that a lot of PIP's are negotiating similar debt settlements(as those being achieved by insolvents) before going into the insolvency process as the banks dont want the hassle and cost of it.


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## ajapale (17 Mar 2014)

Is this the company you are considering http://www.primafinance.ie/ ?

and are they related to a company based in Killarney who have been mentioned here over the last 10 years or so?

for example from 2006 Has anyone used Prima Finance to get them a mortgage?


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## Neoman (17 Mar 2014)

ajapale said:


> Is this the company you are considering http://www.primafinance.ie/ ?



Yes, I spoke with a guy called Brian Leslie


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## Rosie7457 (17 Mar 2014)

Neoman, MoneyBloom charge a flat fee of €250, regardless of the number of creditors.  They put an affordable plan in place & negotiate with your mortgage provider.


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## Neoman (17 Mar 2014)

Thank you Rosie.


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## ClubMan (19 Mar 2014)

IMHO are mentioned in the original post/subject but my understanding is that they only deal with mortgage (PPR and BTL) issues and not also unsecured creditors. I am open to correction on this but the documentation that they send out gives no indication that they deal with unsecured creditors and also states that they priortise keeping a PPR over paying unsecured creditors.


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## Neoman (19 Mar 2014)

You are probably correct Clubman. The name is a bit of a giveaway I suppose. On their website home page it says " help clients deal with Creditors". I emailed them my info and an awaiting their information Pack.


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## Bronte (19 Mar 2014)

postman pat said:


> , some of these other companies can compound your problems.


 
Can you expand on that.


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## Bronte (19 Mar 2014)

Rosie7457 said:


> Neoman, MoneyBloom charge a flat fee of €250, regardless of the number of creditors. They put an affordable plan in place & negotiate with your mortgage provider.


 
That makes it sound like €250 covers everything.  I imagine you mean there is an initial fee of €250 and then there must be more costs?


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## Bronte (19 Mar 2014)

Neoman said:


> I'm quite happy to go for insolvency but I have heard that a lot of PIP's are negotiating similar debt settlements(as those being achieved by insolvents) before going into the insolvency process as the banks dont want the hassle and cost of it.


 
Neoman, do you want to try and post up all your money issues on here and see what the posters on AAM think you could achieve.  There are a couple of posters who are Pips.  

As far as I can tell so far the insolvency system is being avoided by banks if at all possible and they will now come to arrangements.  So if you are not able to negotiate yourself it would be important that you hire someone who is competent to do so and who will work in your interests rather than an emphasis on them getting money from you.


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## Neoman (19 Mar 2014)

Bronte said:


> Neoman,  it would be important that you hire someone who is competent to do so and who will work in your interests rather than an emphasis on them getting money from you.



Bronte. You have hit the nail on the head. 
a)I have decided against Prima Finance.
b) I received Pack from IMHO. They will deal with all credditors and their fees are as stated in other posts I have seen here
c) Money bloom charge a fee of 250, 9does not have to be upfront), but they do also hope to sell the client new mortgage life insurance if required. They then charge 200 at every 3 or 6 month review. I do not know if they stand to gain in any other way, although I did say to her that I very much doubted they could carry out my work for so little.

I do not feel comfortable filling in one of the case study forms but in brief.

PPR.....outstanding 365k....value 200k....arrears....26k...monthly 1800  agreed payment 1200 but managing to pay 1350.  IBRC

RIP.....Voluntarily surrendered in 2012 to IBRC.....Sold this year by them leaving a now unsecured shortfall of 155k

Aib loan 27k currently paying €100pm

car loan reduced payment €150pm

Subprime lenders Cabot/avant/etc €22k approx across 4 loans with no payments at all being made since 2012


Income self including some from self employ/ Mortgage interest Supplement/ Means tested social welfare payment

Income spouse..Half rate carers allowance and Domicillary care allowance for caring for our son who has special needs.

Total Income €35k


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## postman pat (19 Mar 2014)

Bronte said:


> Can you expand on that.



 What i mean is that people who are facing insolvency etc dont need another bill on top,especially if MABS can do the job for free


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## Bronte (20 Mar 2014)

postman pat said:


> What i mean is that people who are facing insolvency etc dont need another bill on top,especially if MABS can do the job for free


 
That's a good point, have you had a successful outcome with MABS?


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## Bronte (20 Mar 2014)

Neoman said:


> PPR.....outstanding 365k....value 200k....arrears....26k...monthly 1800 agreed payment 1200 but managing to pay 1350. IBRC
> 
> RIP.....Voluntarily surrendered in 2012 to IBRC.....Sold this year by them leaving a now unsecured shortfall of 155k
> 
> ...


 
So all your debt is unsecured, apart from your home, and you've a low income. 


Ideally you would need all debt wiped and the home loan reduced to the amount that is currently serviced by 1350 monthly. Have a chat with IMHO and see what they can negotiate for you. They'll probably tell you not to post on AAM !

This is a perfect case for insolvency, it should but it seems to be beyond the insolvency service to have a solution for this type of case but yet people are not getting themselves sorted out by them. Bit failure in the system somewhere.  Is it the cost of the PIP I wonder.  Surely if people like Neoman could go to Mabs, they should be able to process the paperwork for free, or else design a system whereby he could go directly to the ISI himself.


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## wbbs (20 Mar 2014)

MABS can only do the insolvency work on unsecured debt under 20k, after that they will just be negotiating payments etc, not write offs and long term solutions.


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## Bronte (20 Mar 2014)

wbbs said:


> MABS can only do the insolvency work on unsecured debt under 20k, after that they will just be negotiating payments etc, not write offs and long term solutions.


 
I realise they cannot bring people futher than the under 20K procedure.  But is there anything prevening them doing what the IMHO does?  In other words negotiating with creditors based on what you can afford to repay and getting debt writedowns.


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## wbbs (20 Mar 2014)

Possibly not but I don't think they do it, it's all about putting an affordable repayment schedule in place which just continues indefinitely until something changes, increased income for example or the person goes to a PIP.   To the best of my knowledge getting debt writedowns is not anything they do in great numbers, the odd advisor may have had a bit of success but it is not their regular work.  

Obviously I think this work all the way to the end of the insolvency procedure for all cases in particular those who have no income to pay a PIP  should have been given to MABS but it wasn't, politics of some sort at play there I imagine.


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## ClubMan (25 Mar 2014)

Somebody I know went to MABs recently.
On the SFS the MABs person put down their €600 sum outstanding on the CC as a MONTHLY payment of €600. 
This didn't inspire confidence.
Mistakes happen but this was a howler!


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## RichInSpirit (4 Oct 2014)

*MoneyBloom*

I heard good reviews about MoneyBloom on Global Village on Newstalk this evening.


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