Advice by CCCS is IVA! Has anyone ever gone this route?

bernieuk

Hello all

Following some much appreciated advice I contacted the CCCS website. They have advised me that the best course of action for me is an IVA. I have been reading up a little but does anyone here have any direct experience of IVAs?

I have 5 creditors:

Marks and Spencer Visa - £4637.00
MBNA Visa - £1000.00
Norwich & Peterborough Visa - £4575.79
Post Office Mastercard - £3000.00
Halifax Loan - £6800.00

Are any of these companies particularly helpfull or unhelpfull? I feel better knowing I have done something positive about my debt problem but I am still quite aprehensive about the whole thing. The main thing I suppose is having someone knocking on my door demanding money.

I would appreciate any advice or comments.

in-trouble_3

sorry cant help you, we are in the process of doing our dmp with cccs, starting soon, and we have mbna, heard good things and bad things about the company.

taxi73

Sorry I can't help you as I've never been down this route...Just wanted to say welcome and that there will be plenty more along to help you..good luck

james32_uk

To be honest c.£18k is a very low amount to go on an IVA with. The less money you owe in an IVA the less well it 'pays off' as the fees involved will take a higher proportion of your repayments. How much spare cash do you have each month after your essential expenditure?

Dronegc_2

I agree, £18k doesn't seem justification enough to go for an IVA, especially with the fees that are normally involved. The CCCS do seem a bit "IVA-happy" from some of the posts I've seen on this board.
What are your monthly Incomings and Outgoings?

james32_uk

I've read all your posts and it's obviously a tough time for you. You have four options open to you.
1) Do nothing. Not an option as things will just get worse. We've all been there!
2) Bankruptcy. Not sure how this works when I guess you own your own house? Also not really an option as it's a lifetimes stigma for only £20k
3) IVA. You know how this works.
4) DMP. CCCS arrange a voluntary agreement with your creditors to accept smaller payments to allow you breathing space. They will often freeze interest and charges after a short while but there's nothing to legally make them do so.

In my view your options are 3 or 4. In my opinion of the little I know of your finances I would suggest that you'd be better off going for a DMP. If it doesnt work out you could always IVA later and you could end up taking longer to pay off an IVA if your circumstances change in the next 5 years. However, there's an important question to ask here. How can you cope with potentially lots of nasty calls from creditors? With a DMP it will likely involve a few months of calls as your creditors try to get more than their fair share of your repayment money. These can get quite nasty at times and there's been some real horror stories on here. With a speedy IVA that's accepted it's legally binding and the calls are likely to be less frequent and not last as long.

What do you think?

Morglin

I thought you had to owe over £25k to do an IVA?

They have the advanatge of that once approved, credit companies aren't allowed to harass you for any money - and they tend to speak to your insolvency practicioner if they have any queries.

The disadvantage is that you are committed to it for 5 years, and your credit rating will get just as hammered as it would if you went bankrupt.:o

gravitytolls

Doesn't an IVA depend how much equity you have in your home as well? In determining whether or not creditors will agree to an IVA, I mean?

fatbelly

As I understand it, you're in rented accommodation. I can't see that an IVA is relevant.

If you can't sort this out on a commercial basis (juggling 0% deals etc) then you should be looking at a dmp.

Once you learn that threatening letters are just threats, the main harassment problem is the phone and there are various strategies to deal with this. Ask if you need to.

If all else fails and you need an 'insolvency' solution, then bankruptcy is quicker and cheaper (by far) than an IVA. I don't think there's any great 'stigma' to baknruptcy an more, but i guess that's just my perspective.

Best of luck...

oscar52

You dont need to own your own home for an IVA, you can and in most cases will get accepted when you rent. Second The lower limit for entering an IVA is £15000 - which can mean quite hefty payments if your interest rates are high, and last but not least, it isnt quite true that you are traped for 5 years - you are able to settle early if you happen to find a large sum of monay (or this is what i was told - i will stand to be corrected on this last point)

bernieuk

fatbelly wrote:

Once you learn that threatening letters are just threats, the main harassment problem is the phone and there are various strategies to deal with this. Ask if you need to.

Many thanks to yourself and everyone else for replying.

Can anyone tell me more about the various strategies to deal with any phone harassment?

Cheers