Making payments to IVA practitioner for 10 years.

Stevehay

Hi Everyone,
I'm looking for your thoughts and guidance,
10 years ago, we got ourselves in a complete financial mess. We panicked, looked on the internet and ended up with an IVA. We paid the agreed payments for a year or so, and then due to redundancy we had to lower the repayments. This was agreed by our IVA practitioner. After the 5 years were up I contacted the company to see if we would be debt free as promised. I was told that with the level of debt we had, there was no way we were going to be debt free in 5 years and we shouldn't have been told that we would be.
Anyway, 10 years on we are still paying we have very little contact from the company, apart from occasional statements. This has dragged on far to long, and i'm sure these people aren't acting in our best interests.
After so long we now have very good credit scores and no record of the debts on our credit files.
What do you think our best way forward would be ?
Many thanks,
Steve.

sourcrates

Hi,

An IVA typically lasts for 5 years (60 months), although there is actually no set length written into the Insolvency Act 1986.

Ten years though, does not sound right, are you positive its an IVA you have entered into ?

I would say it sounds more like a debt management plan, you need to clarify this by checking your paperwork.

Give citizens advice a ring or National Debtline for further advice.


Steve I hope you come back to read these posts.

National_Debtline

Hi SteveHay, welcome to MSE.


I would suggest you check your paperwork - are you sure this was an IVA and not a DMP? There are a few key factors that distinguish these two options.


An IVA will have a set amount of time to run for and then the remaining debt is written off, the interest and charges must be frozen and there can be no further court action. There is a review every 12 months to see if you can increase your payments (this is quite strict). And if you do not maintain the terms of the IVA, it can fail and you risk bankruptcy.


Whereas a DMP will run for as long as it is necessary to clear the debts in full and whilst the interest, charges and enforcement action is normally frozen - it is not a guarantee. There may also be a review every 12 months to see if you can increase your payments (but this is not as strict as an IVA). You can also cancel a DMP without the risk of bankruptcy and consider other options.

Hopefully that helps you but you must also check your paperwork. Good Luck,


Laura
@natdebtline

Vikipollard

Have you checked what it says on the Insolvency Register?

If you are in an IVA, that would appear until notification was received it had completed.

Mine lingered on there for almost 7 years as GT fannied about with issuing the completion certificate. The defaults disappeared from my credit reports at the six year mark.

Not sure what you mean about your credit scores being good (though they are worth 100% of b*gger all anyway). What do your credit reports say? That should also show if you are in an IVA.

Sounds much more like a DMP, but what does your paperwork say?