New insolvency practitioner getting calls every day

One of the new personal insolvency practitioners in Meath has told how she has been getting up to four enquiries a day from people desperate to extricate themselves from debt.

Tara Cheevers of ACO Financial and Business Solutions, Trim, said she has been getting two to four enquiries about the service every day since she was authorised as an insolvency practitioner by the new Insolvency Service of Ireland (ISI) last month.

“A lot of people have been caught badly by this recession,” she said. “In many cases, they have had big cuts in salary but are finding the cost of everything going up at the same time and can’t make ends meet.

“They just can’t meet their outgoings. They had no problem two or three years ago but that has all changed,” she said.

The fees and charges needed by people hoping to enter the State-backed debt resolution scheme was thrown into sharp focus this week when a Meath councillor condemned the new process as “just jobs for the boys”.
Estimates of between €5,000 and €20,000 for the fees attached to hiring professional advisers to put a debt payment deal together have been suggested.
Ms Cheevers and Meath's other registered PIP, Barry Forrest of Forrest & Co, Dunshaughlin, said they will give debtors an initial free consultation but will have to charge fees for services following that consultation. They both said they would need money “up front” in order to get the process moving.
Fianna Fail Cllr Tommy Reilly said that, in his view, the new insolvency process was “no good to the ordinary man and woman who may be in low paid employment or out of work”.
He said he had been approached by a Navan couple who are facing eviction by a building society because the husband lost his job and they are unable to pay the mortgage.
The Navan councillor said: “They would need €500 to pay directly to the Insolvency Service of Ireland, then three years’ bank statements at €250 a year approximately, and fees of €1,500 or more for the insolvency practitioner. It’s just not on. It’s a total smokescreen.”
Tara Cheevers said she would deal with fees on a “case-by-case basis”, with the initial consultation free of charge but then a €1,000 fee which could be staged over three months or so. 
She said there was a lot of work involved for the practitioner, with the possibility that a lender might not accept any deal that was put together.
Practitioner Barry Forrest also emphasised there was a lot of work involved for practitioners and they were entitled to get a fee for the amount of work done.