got all paperwork for IVA, enormity hit me.

spinningsheep

I have been organsising an IVA with payplan and I have today sat down, taken a deep breath and opened all the nasty letters that have been mounting up in the hallway, and I have all my paperwork in place, but now I have, I feel awful. I cannot believe I have let myself get into this diabolical state, all piled up on paper it looks terrible. Im £20000 in debt with nothing to show for it at all. No flash car, no property, the only expensive electrical item I own is a plasma TV, and that was bought before I was in debt! I feel a responsibility to pay back what I owe, but I also think about BR and how much quicker I would be debt free. I have about £150 a month available income to pay into an IVA, and I am worried I may be tying myself into this IVA for 5 years and what would happen if I cant pay at any time? Ive had a debt collector on the doorstep today and I sent him packing, it just feels like the walls are closing in now and I feel pretty helpless

laurasbump

I know exactly where you're coming from.
I'm in the process of gathering up my documentation and am so ashamed of my bank and credit card statements. Urgh!

Have you stopped your minimum payments to creditors? I haven't done this yet and wondered whether I should cancel all the dd's this month.

Laura

cherry545

Hi - im in the same boat - I owe £22k and cant believe I allowed myself to get to this... Ive been in touch with CCCS and they said I should quality for IVA they gave me the number of Grant Thornton (NI) - I cancelled my appointment for this week because Im terrified of it all back-firing, because you dont know what the future holds.

Ideally I would prefer to pay it back normally because my credit rating is excellent - I know if I go down this route it will be shot to pieces. I tried paying it off with a second job but I ended up losing it due to recession - so I feel this is the only option left, but its the most scariest thing I have ever contemplated.

Nargleblast

Anyone in large amounts of debt has choices. You can go it alone - work out your income and expenditure and send payments to your creditors every month based on what you have got left and how much you owe them. This involves quite a bit of work and you can get hassled by your creditors.
You can do a debt management plan through a company like CCCS or Payplan, and they handle the payments to the creditors for you but it could take years and years to become debt free, and you still get hassle from creditors.
You can do an IVA which frees you from being hassled by creditors, but you are tied to it for 5 years and are expected to release some equity from your home in the final year. If you don't stick to a strict budget and you miss payments to the IVA you risk being made bankrupt. or you can go straight for bankruptcy - I have no personal experience of that but although I have heard of tales of crooked businessmen going bankrupt and laughing about it, I understand that for the majority of people doing this it is a stressful and harrowing experience.
Whatever you decide to do you have to bite the bullet and get on with it - the sooner you do that the sooner you will be out of your dire financial situation.