Is IVA the debt solution for you?

The Individual Voluntary Agreement or IVA was a good solution. The increase in advertising for the “debt write-off” scheme was over advertised and the global credit crunch have both had an effect on this however and IVA’s are quickly losing their status in the finance world.

The promise of 75% of your debts being written off is entirely dependent on your circumstances. If you can afford to pay off 50% your creditors will not allow you to take 25% and walk away, and you would be expected to pay back what you can afford. Banks are increasingly asking for a higher percentage payback and more realistically you can expect creditors to not accept much less than 60% of the total debt owed.

Many of the new firms are adding large expenses to these arrangements, which means that you are generally paying off the company a large amount for the first payments before they have had their fees and the rest goes to your creditors. This will affect the offer made to your creditors although you would usually see this added to your account and you would not expect to pay any more than already discussed. If you miss the IVA payments, you can be declared bankrupt and those charges added to your bankruptcy.

So an IVA is not really the best of the debt solutions for everyone and is often “too good to be true”. It can only really be considered if your only other option is bankruptcy and even then those that really can help, charge you a lot for the service.