Debt services
We can help manage debt
It can sometimes seem that your debt levels are just too much to bear. With all the varying amounts to repay on various dates, it can be hard to keep a close eye on your finances. All too often, in our experience, when you do get round round to tallying up your incomings and outgoings you'll find that you are genuinely unable to make all ends meet.
You are not trying to avoid your debt. You are trying to keep your head above water. So what can you do? Is it possible that your creditors can agree to actually reduce what you owe them?
Thankfully, yes. There are mechanisms in place expressly designed to help people in your situation and our primary expertise, which we have found very useful for our clients, is the Individual Voluntary Arrangement. From now on we'll call it the IVA, for short. What is it? It is a legally binding agreement between you and your creditors, and it serves to make your creditors aware of your inability to continue to repay your debts at the current level, and therefore allow them to renegotiate your terms of repayment at a more manageable rate.
There are some hurdles to jump through, of course, and there can be no guarantee that your creditors will agree to an IVA. They cannot be forced into this deal. In fact, it requires the agreement of 75% of your creditors according to your total amount of debt. That is, if you owe £20,000 to 20 people at £1,000 each, then 15 of them will have to accept the terms of the IVA before it becomes a legally binding agreement (£15,000 being 75% of £20,000). But if just six of them disagree then the deal's off.
So, to recap: To qualify for an IVA then just for starters you have to be in debt. More than £15,000 of debt. You must also have more than three creditors. And your debts have to be unsecured. On top of this, you have to be able to demonstrate that you really can't make your repayments. If all these conditions are true for you, then we'd like to have a friendly, open chat with you. For your initial consultation (until you decide if you want to pursue an IVA or some other form of debt management with us), we'll talk for free. There are other options available to you we can discuss as well.
If you'd like to know more, Freephone us on 08000 326 333 or fill in our enquiry form and we'll get back to you at your convenience. If you want to see more of the criteria for IVAs and the pros and cons involved, read on below. We'd prefer it if you give it the once-over, particularly the 'cons' section.