Debt Advice

clarissabell

Hi

End of 2007 I seperated from husband and unfortunately most of credit agreements, credit cards, club books etc were in my name as he was self employed and I always took the finance! Due to our seperation obviously I found myself as a single mother and left with debts I could no longer afford to pay! I took out a IVA in Jan 2008 and was paying but then began to struggle with this so advised them I could not pay and this resulted int he IVA failing over a year ago now! I have received debt collection letters from a couple of these outstanding debts but not all and have just chosen to ignore this and never responded! Is this wise? My brother sough advise and told that because the IVA had failed debtors were unlikely to chase and why struggle for me to find the money to declare myself bankrupt. He said the worse the creditors would do was make me bankrupt and why would they pay out more money when its obvious I dont have the money to pay them when an IVA failed. Which does I suppose make sense but does not help me to stop worrying!!!!!!!!! Advice please.................:(

Gimpsdad

I am not sure where your brother sought advice from, but it is fair to say that, at the very best, some of it has been lost in translation somewhere.

Once an IVA fails, creditors can and usually do start chasing their unpaid debts again. Do you have assets to protect, such as a house? If not, and assuming you do not qualify for a DRO, then you may have to pursue the BR route if you want rid of the debts once and for all. Your creditors will almost certainly not petition you for BR as it costs them a lot of money to do so, and if they are not going to get anything back then why do it?