IVA: Individual Voluntary Arrangement.
IVA debt solution is a formal agreement
between you and the people you owe money to, your creditors, to
arrange to pay a percentage of the money you owe them at a reduced
monthly amount for about 5 years. Once you have paid your IVA
debt solution for the agreed period the debt is then considered
settled. An IVA debt solution has
to be arranged by an Insolvency Practioner because of its formal
nature.
What is the purpose of an IVA
debt solution ?
Whwn you arrange an IVA debt solution with an Insolvency Practioner
it becomes a legally binding agreement between you and the people
you owe money to.IVA debt solution will help you if you are in
finacial trouble with mounting debts.
IVA debt solution
Arrangements?
IVA debt solution is based on your monthly affordable disposable
income. When you have made the final payment on your IVA debt solution,
any outstanding debt is legally written off. The IVA debt solution
can write off up to 75% of your debts (subject to your current fiancial
situation ).
How does an IVA debt solution work?
An IVA debt solution works by settling your debts within a fixed
period of time which is normally 5 years. No interest or debt charges
will be added by your creditors and they are not allowed to make
demands for additional payments.
Once a decision has been made that an IVA
debt solution is right for you, you will be asked questions
regarding your current financial circumstances. A repayment amount
for your IVA debt solution will then
be agreed. Once the IVA debt solution proposal has been drawn up
you will need to check and sign the IVA debt solution and return
them to your Insolvency Practioner
An application may then be made to the court for an Interim Order.
Once this is in place, no creditors will be able to take legal action
against you. You may be asked to attend your creditors meeting but
this rarely happens, normally you are asked to be contactable by
phone on the day.
For an IVA debt solution to be approved,
creditors will be called upon to vote either for or against the
IVA debt solution. If only one creditor votes "for" the
IVA debt solution, the IVA debt solution will be approved. However,
if only one creditor votes against the IVA debt solution and they
represent less than 25% of your total debt, the meeting will be
suspended for a later date and other creditors who did not vote
will be called upon for their vote.
If the creditor who voted against the IVA
debt solution represents more than 25% of the total debt you
owe the IVA debt solution will fail. This is because an IVA debt
solution will only ever be approved if 75% in monetary value is
voted for. If any of the creditors don't vote, it is assumed that
they will vote FOR the IVA debt solution.
The IVA debt solution will be legally
binding. As long as you keep up the repayments, when the term of
your agreement is finished, you will be free from these debts regardless
of how much has been paid off.
During the period of your arrangement your financial situation
will be reviewed regularly to see if there has been any change in
your circumstances.
It is very important that consumers do not confuse an IVA
debt solution with a Debt Management Plan, which are not legally
binding.
Most IVA debt solution cases are
based around one, affordable, monthly, payment, over a period of
60 months. This one affordable payment is based on your earnings
minus your expenses.
An IVA debt solution proposal
has to be prepared by a licensed Insolvency Practitioner (IP) who
then presents it to creditors at a creditors meeting.
In the case of a consumer IVA debt solution
it is unusual for any creditors or their representatives to attend
the creditors meeting as most prefer to vote by fax or by post.
The rules of an IVA debt solution
state that providing 75% (in value terms) of those that have voted,
vote to accept the proposals (with or without modifications) then
the IVA debt solution is agreed and becomes legally binding on all
other parties whether they voted or not.
When an IVA debt solution is accepted
the IP's role becomes that of supervisor, monitoring the Individual
IVA debt solution progress and ensuring that the terms and conditions
that were agreed to at the creditors meeting are properly adhered
to.
It is the debtor's responsibility to pay the agreed payments to
the IP who will then ensure that these payments are distributed
to all creditors on a pro-rata basis in accordance with terms and
until the successful completion of the IVA debt solution. It is in the debtors own interest to maintain
their payments as failure to pay will almost certainly result in
the failure of the IVA debt solution.
Upon the successful completion of the IVA
debt solution the debtor will be considered debt free even though
they may not have actually paid off all of their debts in full.
Any outstanding balances are written off (known as a composition
of debts) and the debtor is then free to make a fresh financial
start.
It is worth noting that if you do enter into an IVA
debt solution with your creditors and you have an endowment
policy linked to your mortgage then you may be expected to cash
it in and pay the proceeds into the arrangement. Likewise, if your
property has a reasonable amount of equity then it is likely that
a some of it will have to be released at sometime during the arrangement
(usually the end), so it can be paid to creditors. Drastic as this
may sound it can be a deciding factor in whether an IVA debt solution is approved by creditors and a realistic way in
which a debtor can retain their property
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