Frequently Asked Questions

An Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA) is an agreement with your creditors to pay all or part of your debts. You agree to make regular payments to an insolvency practitioner, who will divide this money between your creditors. An IVA can give you more control of your assets than bankruptcy.

Most unsecured debts other than debts such as court fines and student loans are covered under an IVA. This can include credit cards, store cards, payday loans, overdrafts personal loans and more. Trading debts including debts owed to suppliers and H M Revenue and Customs are also covered under IVAs.

Your payments to the IVA will depend on different factors of which your income will play a major role. Your monthly expenditure and your personal circumstances will also be taken into consideration. We ensure that you pay what is affordable for you and not what your creditors may ask for.

Even if some of your creditors have taken court proceedings against you these debts can still be included in your IVA. Once the IVA is approved all court actions will cease.

Absolutely not, as long as you have a steady income or you receive some state benefits and you are able to afford to pay a monthly contribution after paying your living expenses.

Absolutely not without your written consent. The IVA is a confidential process. We will keep your data safe and we will not let anyone know about the IVA other than you and your creditors. The IVA will be registered with the Insolvency Service on the Individual Insolvency Register and it is possible for someone to search this register to find out if you are subject to an IVA.

Under the terms of your IVA you will promise to pay a minimum amount to your creditors, which is much less than what you were bound to pay otherwise. This will certainly affect your credit rating adversely. However, your credit rating may be already quite low if you have missed some payments or made late payment to your creditors. As you will also agree in the IVA that you will not borrow any money while you are subject to the IVA then it may not matter to you that your credit rating has been affected. As with any formal debt solution, an IVA will stay on your credit report for the greater of six years from the date it starts or 12 months after it is completed.

When we propose an IVA to your creditors you will state how much you propose to pay from your income. This payment will be used to pay the costs of the IVA and the remainder will be paid to your creditors. This means that you will only pay the proposed contributions which are affordable for you and you will not have to pay anything in addition. Anchorage Chambers propose a transparent, inclusive fixed fee cost of £3,650 which incorporates the Nominee Fee, Supervisory Fee and all costs and expenses associated with the arrangement. We will charge an additional Supervisory Fee of 15% on any other asset realisations that may come into your arrangement e.g., windfalls.

The first thing you need to do is to complete the online IVA form. We will get in touch with you as soon as possible and we will analyse your circumstances and advise you if an IVA is right for you. We need full details of your financial position to be able to advise you. We will always ask you before we process your IVA. If you decide to proceed with an IVA we will prepare the IVA proposal and associated documents so that your creditors can review the proposal. This process may take up to 6 weeks once we have all your information.

The Nominees and Supervisors of IVAs must be licensed insolvency practitioners who are all regulated by their professional bodies. At Anchorage Chambers our licenced Insolvency Practitioners are regulated by the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales (the ‘ICAEW’) and Insolvency Practitioners Association (the 'IPA').

The process for approving IVAs is now long established. Once we have advised you that an IVA is an option available to you, we are confident that your creditors are very likely to approve the IVA. We regularly deal with most of the major creditors and because of this we know whether they will be likely to approve your IVA

In simple words, any unsecured debts still outstanding in your IVA will be written off. Even though you are unlikely to repay your debts in full your creditors have agreed that if you complied with the terms of the IVA they cannot pursue you for any debts which remain unpaid. Your credit rating may still be affected after the end of the IVA but it will gradually continue to improve.

If we recommend an IVA as an appropriate solution for you and you decide to proceed it is very unusual for creditors to vote against the IVA. If for some reason your creditors do reject your IVA, we will advise you of other solutions for dealing with your debts. Remember also that we will not charge you anything if your IVA is not accepted by your creditors.

If you simply fail to make payments as agreed then the IVA Supervisors will notify you of the breach of the IVA. If you do not take any action the IVA will be ended and your creditors will again be able to take action against you. Your debts may not have reduced and interest and costs can continue to be added to them by your creditors.
If you are struggling to make payments due to circumstances beyond your control e.g., redundancy or ill health your creditors are likely to look sympathetically on any proposals you may wish to make for revised payments even if this means extending the duration of the IVA. It is important that you keep in regular communication with us should anything of this nature occur.

MoneyHelper joins up money and pensions guidance to make it quicker and easier to find the right help. MoneyHelper brings together the support and services of three government-backed financial guidance providers: the Money Advice Service, the Pensions Advisory Service and Pension Wise.