Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA)

An IVA is an alternative to bankruptcy. It is a formal arrangement between you and your creditors. It allows you to pay back all or part of your debts over a fixed period of time, typically five years. It is an option where money problems are temporary and you wish to preserve assets such as your home and so you don’t want to go bankrupt

IVAs aren't suitable for everyone. They only cover certain types of non-priority debts such as overdrafts, unsecured personal loans and credit card accounts. They are also only suitable for people who have spare income of £200 or more a month who owe money to two or more separate creditor. If you have priority debts such as a mortgage, rent arrears and hire purchase arrears, you will need to make other arrangements to pay these off.

An Insolvency practitioner will help you put together a proposal to creditors to pay all your non-priority debts and then call a creditors' meeting where your creditors will vote on whether to accept the proposal. If enough creditors vote in favour, the proposal is approved and the court is asked to approve the IVA.

Your insolvency practitioner is responsible for making sure that all sides keep to the agreement and will action if they don't. As long as you keep to the agreement, your creditors can't take action against you.Before deciding to proceed with an IVA, you should look at other options you have for sorting out your debts so that you choose the one that's best for you.

Services - Debt