IVA Advice

stevenm37

I'm 18 months into an IVA. Its a struggle but I get by. I currently live alone but want to get a place with my girlfriend. We want to rent a place and bring our two families together.
Could someone tell me what the implications are of doing this.
She is solvent and has a clear credit rating, I obviously do not!
Any advise would be greatly appreciated.
Steve

Tixy

If you rent a place together this will not link you on your credit files and won't mean her credit file is affected by yours. With an IVA on your file you might struggle to be able to rent a place, so she might need to consider renting in her name only.

Do not get a joint bank account together. Some utility companies now report to credit reference agencies so ideally don't get them in joint names.

In terms of your IVA - your financial situation would need to be reassessed - a new income & expenditure account looked at at your next review. If your expenses have gone down (because you'll now only been paying a proportion of some costs that you perhaps paid all of before) then its possible your IPA would say your monthly repayment would need to be increased.

I believe the usual way is prepare an income & expenditure account when you live with a partner and both earn is to assume you pay either half the household bills or sometimes a pro-rata share based on your relative incomes, and all of your own personal costs, none of your partners personal costs. You could try asking for advice on the IVA section of the forum to confirm if this is correct.

stevenm37

Thankyou for your advice! I wanted to post this on the IVA section but couldn't seem to find how to do that!

Tixy

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/newthread.php?do=newthread&f=159 this link will start a new thread in the IVA section if you want to get the opinions of the folks on there as well