I've completed early - can I clear my credit rating?

emma32_2

Hi

I started my IVA in Sept 06 and it was due for completion in Sept 2011. My circumstance have changed dramatically over the past 2.5 years, primarily from a financial perspective, my salary increased by £10k, I always kept my IP informed of my circumstances and my IVA repayments increased accordingly, I also made additional payments whenever I found I'd had a particularly careful month, so I was always ahead of my original payment arrangments. However the biggest change in my life is now occuring as I find myself currently 8 months pregnant. As always I informed my IP of my changed circumstances as soon as I could and asked what my maternity leave (and reduced salary) would mean to my IVA repayments. Also at this time I very fortunately was offered a financial gift from my father on the basis that the sum is used to get back on my feet again and start financially afresh with the baby. I asked the IP if it would be possible to accept and use the gift to make an early payment offer and he advised me to put a proposal together which he would submit for voting by my creditors.

The lump sum offer made my total repayments to very roughly the sum that would have been repaid over the 5 year term, taking into account my increased and additional IVA payments, but still would have been approx £4000 less than my total original debt (just under £22k against an original debt of £26k). I stated all of my circumstances in my proposal and thankfully 100% of my creditors accepted the offer. Therefore I am in the process now of completing the paperwork and paying the lump sum offer. However my reason for doing all of this was so that I could get my life back on track with my new child and this includes cleaning my credit rating asap so i can look to get a mortgage in a year or two with my partner (we currently do not have a mortgage). However after reading the info on this website (I wish I'd have known about this in 2006!) it mentions that an IVA is on a persons history for 6 years, but that advice seems to be always based on an IVA that is repaid over 5 years. If an IVA is repaid early is it still on my history for 6 years or is there anything I can do to make sure my history is cleaned sooner? Like most with IVA's - I've worked so hard and gone without a lot for 2.5 years to clear my debts and (admittedly) been very lucky to get help; and all I want to do now is give my baby the best start in life possible and I believe that begins with making sure my financial situation is strong and that I learn from the mistakes of my youth so i am very very keen to do what I can to get us back on track. Does anyone know about the legailities of what happens after an IVA and can anyone give me any idea how long this is likely to take me? Thanks for your help and advice. Em

danielanthony

Defaults on your credit file stay there from 6 years from the START of your IVA, it does not matter how long the IVA was for.

Get copies of your Experian and Equifax credit files, I found that some of my creditors had put default dates YEARS after my IVA had been set up, meaning that my credit file would have been shot for years more than it needed to be. My 5 year IVA came to an end in May '08 and so by the end of next month there will be no more 'black marks' on my credit file. This is NOT automatic and required me to contact most of my creditors and pestering the credit reference agencies to make sure the information was correct for it to be taken off exactly 6 years after my IVA started.