IVA advice please?

watergate22

Hi, new to the forum, hoping someone can give us a little advice....... we're in an IVA, paying a set amount per month and then 50% of any additional monies, guess that's pretty standard? My other half was out of work this summer for 2-3 months unfortunately, and therefore has some arrears. We have no payment holidays to take and apparently these arrears cannot be added to the remaining payments to the end of the IVA's, lifetime (hope that makes sense?)


It would appear that our only option is to take further money from our 50% of the additional monies to pay off the arrears, but that means losing probably what amounts to 75-80% of the additional money on top of the set monthly payment, and with the shift work I do it feels as though I am working all hours for virtually nothing, and what's worse I can't pay for the little things that matter most, e.g. family bits and pieces.


We're just over half way through our IVA and its feeling like a real uphill struggle now, maybe its just me to be honest but with living in renting accomodation I'm wondering if we're in the best place...is the IVA the right thing?


Don't know much about alternatives so can anyone give me some much needed advice?


Thank you:

debtfree2016

Hi Watergate22, I'm sure if you pushed to speak to the Supervisor you could arrange for a creditors variation meeting to extend the IVA to cover the payments. This was offered to me once so guessing its available. You would need to post some figures if you after advice to see if an IVA was the correct route for you.

longtermplanner

We have no payment holidays to take and apparently these arrears cannot be added to the remaining payments to the end of the IVA's, lifetime (hope that makes sense?)

Are you on an IVA using the Standard IVA Protocol? Who is your IVA firm? Can you say how much each of you owes and how large your monthly payments are?

When you say "you have no payment holidays to take" does this mean that you have already taken one? Or that there is no provision in your IVA for one?

Even if there is no provision, you can always request that a creditors meeting is help to allow the arrears to be added on to the end.

BUT is this a good idea? The longer an IVA goes on for, the more things that can go wrong! If you could make good the arrears by doing some overtime, then this would be a much better approach. It may feel tough at the time, working "for nothing" but of course you are actually working to clear off your debts.

HOWEVER this all depnds on your actual IVA being at a reasonable rate and your partner not being out of work again. If you feel you are constantly struggling, do you think the IVA amount is unrealistic? If you think more problems are likely to arise, then it may be better to bite the bullet now and give up on the IVA.

Half way through, this is a difficult decision to make. Probably you would have been better advised at the start to go for bankruptcy, but at this point, if you can stagger on to the end of 5 years that would probably be better.