IVA advice

Kdalglish7

We currently have an outstanding debt of £80k and have been in a DMP for seven yrs. Following advice we are in the midst of sorting an IVA via CCCS .
However following a current budget review our potential payments have gone from £291 to £625 payable over possibly 7yrs . Also we have been told to cash in an endowment so I can release my half . This has knocked us for six !
The endowment was going towards our daughters college fund . Also my wife is working extra for herself and the kids , the debt is mine alone so why should my wife pay for my debt ?

If we are not happy can we opt out and revert to the DMP ? Or will we be forced into an IVA by my creditors . I have tried F&F with the banks but failed . The situation proposed will lead to me being kicked out which will make our financial worse and our creditors getting less .
Also my debt was acrued due to a gambling problem , I have been clean for 8yrs and am getting help for what is a recognised mental illness . Would it work in my favour if I mentioned this , relying on the banks to show some compassion ????

Desperate for advice please .

Thanks in advance .

milliemonster

I would speak to a few other companies and not just go with CCCS, a 7 year IVA is unusual, unless you have equity and NRAM as one of your creditors, if you have a joint endowment then yes creditors will potentially want their share of that, however, if all the debt is just yours and your wife is not going to be part of the IVA then she could just easily refuse for the endowment to be cashed in and there is nothing your creditors could do about that (apart from extend your IVA for 12 months in lieu of it)

Creditors can potentially argue that your wife will have benefitted from your debt and therefore should pay towards it, it's a bit of a grey area and you need a good IP to present your case carefully (CCCS only have 1 IP for their thousands of customers so their personal attention can be somewhat lacking)

You can quite easily refuse to discuss your wife's financial details with her not being part of the IVA as you are quite correct in that she should not be paying towards it, but creditors will want to ensure she is paying her fair share of the household bills to ensure your disposable income is as high as possible to pay the IVA