Now the decision IVA/DMP

SomewhereOverTheRainbow

Finally got to speak to a person........Jane - Payplan advisor on the phone

Joint Debt = £43660
Me = employed, husband = self employed.

Having worked out the calculations with the advisor, we have £270 to pay toward debt.

DPM = 14 years to pay back

IVA = 5 years to pay back

Now to make a decision.

I can see pro's and con's for both but interested in what others think.

FYI: Already in neg equity of £33k so don't envisage a problem with the house.

milliemonster

we were in a similar position to you financially and went for the IVA, I am assuming you have not considered or ruled out bankruptcy? We chose IVA, a DMP for us would realistically have taken 20 years to pay off, is the 14 years you have been quoted dependent on if they can get creditors to completely freeze interest and charges during that time? If so it is unlikely creditors would do that for that length of time so you could find your DMP route being significantly longer.

At the end of the day you have to make a decision that is right for you and your family. For us, I didn't want the uncertainty of a DMP, DMP's in my view are designed for a short term solution to give you a bit of a breathing space while you decide how to tackle your debt long term and not a long term solution. Our adviser told us that any DMP that was going to take longer than 10 years on paper was not the best solution. I couldn't face being stuck paying debt off for the next 20 years of my life, are you happy to commit 14+ yrs of yours to this?

We are now 8 months into our IVA and I'm happy we made the right decision, we can manage our budget comfortably and fortunately we are both in secure jobs so I am confident we can do this successfully and in just over 4 years will be free to start again

Good luck whichever way you go