An Individual Voluntary Arrangement can protect your assets, restructure your personal debt & help you avoid bankruptcy

Arrange

one low, affordable monthly payment

Freeze interest & charges

on your debts

Legally write off

debts you cannot afford to pay

Prevent your creditors

from chasing you for money or contacting you again

For homeowners

free up cash to help avoid your property being repossessed

Restructure your repayments

over an achievable time period

What is an Individual Voluntary Arrangement?

An Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA) is a process that was introduced to help people tackle their personal debts. In simple terms, it is a formal agreement between you and your creditors (the people you owe money too) that helps you pay back only what you can afford, over a set time period.

What are the main advantages of an IVA?

Avoid personal bankruptcy
Retain control of your home
Consolidate your payments to one manageable monthly sum

How does an IVA work?

The first step is to speak with one of our experienced team who will look at your financial situation and make a list of all of your monthly expenses including, rent / mortgage, food, toiletries, loans, credit cards, living costs etc. Once your monthly expenses have been taken into account, we will be able to identify what money you have left over and out of that figure, determine what you can realistically afford to pay to your creditors each month – this figure is likely to be lower than your current monthly expenditure.

We will explain how an IVA works and answer any questions you may have about the process. If an IVA is a suitable solution for you, we will prepare a proposal outlining the suggested payment plan which is then sent to your creditors. Your creditors then have an opportunity to vote to accept or decline your proposal, but don’t worry – in the rare case where a creditor is unhappy with the proposed plan, we will negotiate on your behalf.

It will always be a Licensed Insolvency Practitioner from our experienced team that will lead the negotiations with your creditors.

When a proposal is approved, you will then start to make your lowered monthly payments (usually over a period of 5 years) and when the IVA term finishes, all outstanding debts will be written off. Put simply, an IVA can help you make a fresh start financially, no matter what level of debt you are currently in.

An IVA is also is also useful if you trade as a sole trader or partnership and want to protect your business from being forced to close because your creditors are threatening bankruptcy proceedings against you.

What is the process to obtain an IVA?

The Proposal

We gather information on your financial position, including your assets and liabilities and your income and expenditure. We prepare your proposal based on what monthly sum you can afford, and we compare this to what your creditors would likely receive if you were to be declared bankrupt.

The Vote

We issue your proposal to your creditors and set a deadline for them to vote on whether to approve it. We will deal with any queries creditors have and negotiate with any that are not in favour of your proposal. There is no requirement for you to be at a physical meeting or face your creditors. Voting is almost exclusively carried out by post, fax or email.

Registration

Once approved, we will issue written confirmation to you and your creditors, as well as registering the IVA with the government’s Insolvency Service.

Implementation

We will monitor and supervise your IVA for its duration. We will open a client bank account and provide you with details to pay your funds into each month. We will write to you once a year to ask you to provide an up to date version of your income and expenditure. We will send a report once a year to you and your creditors summarising the IVA’s progress.

Conclusion

Once all funds are received in over the IVA period (usually 5 years) and we have agreed all creditors’ claims, we will pay the funds out to creditors on a pro-rata basis. If there is any debt that cannot be paid from the IVA funds, creditors will write this off. We will then conclude the IVA and issue a certificate of completion to you and your creditors.

Leading

At Leading our team of experts have helped many people make a fresh start. Often our clients have ever growing debts and are struggling to juggle their cash to make ends meet. In many cases, the situation is more serious and the fear of bailiffs knocking on the door has become a very grim reality. We specialise in helping you to overcome these obstacles, allowing you to move on with your life without the weight of the world on your shoulders. We offer free advice to anybody who is struggling to make ends meet so get in touch today for a free, no obligation consultation.