Need debt advice? We can help.

An Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA) is a legal agreement between you and your creditors, offering a structured and manageable way to repay your debts. It provides an alternative to bankruptcy, giving you the opportunity to make affordable payments over a fixed period. In most instances, the arrangement involves ‘writing off’ a portion of your debt once you’ve successfully completed the term of the IVA. All IVA’s are administered by an Insolvency Practitioner, whose role involves balancing your interests with those of your creditors to ensure a fair and mutually beneficial resolution.

The insolvency practitioner (IP) will only charge fees if an IVA is subsequently approved by your creditors and our fees are only taken from your monthly payments or asset realisations paid into your arrangement. We also offer, as part of your proposal, to start distributing a percentage of the payments made by you from as soon as month 3 of your arrangement or in some cases earlier, which means the balances owed to your creditors are starting to reduce. In some cases, creditors amend the terms of the IVA so that we are not required to make payments to them until the Nominee fees and disbursements have been repaid.

When your IVA is accepted, a copy of the Chairman’s Report is sent to all creditors. However, large companies such as banks and credit card companies often take time to process this and pass the information to their debt collection agencies. If you continue to get contacted, then you should advise the debt collectors that you are in an IVA and that all correspondence should be forwarded to your Supervisor. It is very normal to still receive some contact after approval for a few weeks, but this will stop.

The arrangement is based on the individual’s financial situation, allowing them to make affordable monthly payments for a fixed period. The best way of calculating what you can reasonably afford is by going through your monthly income and expenditure. We will do this with you. What are you left with after you have paid all your essential bills such as rent, council tax, tv licence, food, clothing, travel, telephone bills etc? This is what is known as your disposable income, and this is the amount that is deemed to be what you can reasonably afford to repay.

• A formal agreement with lenders to make one affordable monthly payment towards all your unsecured debts.
• If your IVA is approved, lenders will freeze interest and charges and you are protected from further collection and legal activity to recover the debt, If you maintain payments into the agreement.
• On completion of your IVA, any remaining unsecured debt will be written off – up to 85%
• You’ll be left with enough money each month to cover all your essential living costs.
• You may need to reduce spending on non-essential items.
• You won’t be forced to sell your home. IVA’s typically protect things like houses and essential assets.
• If you own your home, you may need to remortgage to cover some of your debts. If you can’t remortgage, you may need to make your IVA payments for an extra 12 months.
• Available in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.
• An IVA will affect your credit rating.
• Fees will be payable if your IVA is accepted.
• Details of your IVA will be added to the Insolvency Register.