My IVA journey

patchy987

Ok so this is quite long so I will understand if no one reads it but I wanted to share my story to maybe help people struggling through their iva

Our story

Ok so it all started in September 2006 when we realised we needed serious help.

We were under a reposession order from our mortgage lenders and had just 2 days till we would be made homeless. We were constantly struggling to pay our bills along with our debts and felt we were sinking fast.

We didn't know which way to turn

A well meaning friend suggested we talk to one of the companies that buy your house off you and then let you live there as a tenant, initially we thought this would be good as it would mean we kept our house.

One phone call and a pushy salesman later we had an offer on the table for well under the true value of our property. We didn't feel right about it so politely declined the offer and asked the guy to leave. This was the start of aggressive phone calls every 20 minutes from them !!
We ended up turning our phones off !

In a last minute desperate attempt to find a solution we scoured the Internet for other options finally stumbling across a mortgage broker who claimed to be able to help anyone !

Was this our answer ?

Well after a 2 hour phone conversation they managed to get a 28 day extension on our repossession date while a new mortgage deal was sorted with a sub-prime lender, we had a bit of hope at this point and the next morning we had a call back to say they had got a lender who would help us and a valuer was coming later that day.

Fast forward a few hours and a lovely guy turned up and after checking our house he confirmed we should have no problem in securing the mortgage we needed. Still seemed too good to be true but what had we got to lose at this point ?

I won't bore anyone with what happened over the next 3 weeks but happily we got ourselves a new mortgage with a lovely company and kept our house.

Now fast forward another 3 months and although the mortgage was running smoothly we were still sinking in debt, so much so it caused me to have a serious breakdown which meant I couldn't work, our main income was gone, we now only had my partners wages to live on.

To make matters worse we received a statutory demand notice which sent me into a right panic. This on top of the constant letters and phone calls had me constantly in tears. It was at this point that I seriously thought about ending my life, I couldn't see a way out of this mess but thankfully hubby was my rock and made me never give up.

Again in desperation we turned to the Internet and this time found a company who claimed they would help us sort our debts into just one payment a month at an amount affirdable to us and they could get the statutory demand included and the best part was that no creditors could hound us any more.

3 days later we had a company rep turn up, he was so lovely and polite, after looking at our incoming and outgoings he advised we would be expected to make payments of £150 a month for 5 years with an equity release amount of 10k in 5 years and we would then be debt free.

This sounded too good to be true but we decided we had nothing to lose, he went back to his office and said he would be in touch.

Around 2 days later we were then told that we would actually need to pay £336 a month instead, now we knew this was going to be difficult but it was still less than the £550 we had been trying to find each month so we decided to proceed.

All our paperwork was sent off and within a couple of days we had everything signed and were nervously awaiting our creditors meeting.

The meeting was arranged and thankfully all accepted with no alterations !

This began our 5 year struggle to financial freedom

During the 5 years it felt like we were just existing instead of living, after all our bills and debt payments we were only allowed £30 a week between us, this was supposed to cover shopping, clothing, fuel, hairdressing, prescriptions and various other things.

It can only be described as impossible and if it hasn't been for the kindness of my lovely mom there would have been weeks that we lived on just bread and water !

3 years into all this we discovered Martin Lewis's website and found that we had more than likely been led to agree to something totally unaffordable but by this stage we were so far into it that it seemed silly to stop so we kept on with our struggle.

This became so difficult that even through the winter we had no heat in our house because we simply couldn't afford to turn it on, we just wrapped up in warm jumpers and snuggled in our duvet.

Fast forward to the middle of year 5 we had a letter stating it was now time to start organising our equity release of £10k, this was something we had completely forgotten about and again spiralled my depression deeper and deeper into the black hole, after taking the advice of some lovely people on the forum we contacted the iva company and asked about options as our house had gone from 100k value with around 30k equity to almost negative equity.

Again a creditors meeting was called and we anxiously awaited their decision, they finally decided that we should have to pay them another 5k but gave us 12 months to do this.

So just as we thought we were finally about to get our lives back we now had not just 6 months to go but it was now 18 !! Hell on earth

Anyway we plodded along, wearing the same clothes we had for 5 years, stitching holes and not even being able to have a haircut (well hubby did but only because we got hold of some cheap clippers and I cut it for him)

This may sound crazy but I was longing for the day I could walk into a shop and purchase a newspaper, something so simple that most people take for granted but it was just something I couldn't afford to do.

Now during this extra 12 months of payments I unfortunately suffered a miscarriage, this was a totally unplanned pregnancy that I didn't even know about until I miscarried, the pain was so intense but the emotional pain was so much worse, would things ever go right for us ?

2 weeks later I'm rushed back into hospital with severe cramps only to be told I'm miscarrying the twin of the baby that died ... Twin ? They told me there was no heartbeat on the baby, how could there be a twin and it not be detected ? Still more pain and heartbreak to go through.

The worst bit of all this is having to go through it alone, hubby couldn't be with me as we couldn't afford for him to take any time off work as he doesn't get sick pay. No woman should go through this alone.

6 months later and life plays another cruel trick on us by yet another miscarriage ( again unplanned pregnancy) at this point I'm thinking why, just why ? Will this ever end ?

At this point yet again my days are spent crying and feeling lost and worthless, I started wishing I could be anyone but me.

Finally we reach the end of 2012 and make out last payment to the iva company, I cannot begin to explain how that felt, I was in tears again but for good reason this time !! One of the first things I did was buy that newspaper I had wanted, something so small but it felt amazing !!!

A year on and we are loving living a debt free life, I wanted to share this for anyone going through an iva right now,

yes it's hard,
yes at times it feels never ending,
yes you will be brought to your lowest point,
yes you will feel deprived
Yes you will struggle

But trust me when I say it's all worth it, so if you are still reading then thankyou and I hope that my story can encourage people going through it right now

toomuch2

A truly humbling story.

Thank you for sharing

FiatFan_2

Thanks for sharing your story Patchy, reading how little you had to survive on from an early iva makes some of todays budgets sound like luxury living

patchy987

They do seem to allow a lot more now, I was amazed last year when I saw a thread showing the kind of allowances given !!

patchy987

toomuch2 wrote: »

A truly humbling story.

Thank you for sharing

I just wanted to help people see there is always light at the end of the tunnel even if it can't be seen

UpToMyNeckInIt

Hi patchy987,

A trully harrowing account - and hats-off you you for getting through it. I think many of use would thave thrown in the towel long before.

A cautionary tale of 'how not to do an IVA' for any perspective IVA customer, if ever there was one.

I'm not having a go with that comment, because I cannot even begin to imagine the blind panic that must have been gripping you at the time, and that the IVA must have seemed like your only olive branch. What saddens me is that your IVA sales rep. probably knew it as well, and exploited the opportunity to hit you with a massively increase premium over what you were initially expecting.

I am sure you are not alone with many of these experiences, and there is little doubt in my mind that many other IVA's have been mis-represented and mis-sold.

An IVA is not meant to be easy, but it must be 'affordable' without having to tolerate the 3rd-World living standards that you describe.

Sincerely wish you all the best with your debt-free future.

Find_The_Real

Hello Patchy,

Thank you for taking the time and the courage to share your story, I am sure it will help many people to understand the pressure of debt and how despite things looking to be desperate, there is hope. I am sure in hindsight everyone of us had wished we had done something different to the choices we made but sometimes it is not easy to think clearly when under extreme stress and pressure.

I just wanted to wish you the best of luck for the future now the struggle is over and I hope all goes well with you.

patchy987

Thanks to you all, and I'm not offended by the comment that this is how not to do an IVA as that just about sums it up, we have truly been to hell and back

But hey we are loving life now

patchy987

Just an update, we have now finally received our completion certificate, feeling even more happy now

Find_The_Real

Congratulations Patchy on getting the CC, now you really can put everything behind you and look forward to the future knowing it truly is over. Wishing you all the best and I hope you continue to have a more happy future.