Some points well made here.
It's reasonable to assume that if you have been complying for not far short of 2 years with the requirements to contribute into an IVA that the OR will immediately conclude that you will be able to make payments into the Bankruptcy under an IPO or an IPA. This will be for 3 years although admittedly probably for less each month. Add to that the fact that it will cost about £500 for each petition and any benefit in you now doing it must be marginal in raw financial terms.
If the advice has come from a commercial organisation such as the IVA Council they (or more correctly a connected organisation) will charge about £1000 to assist with the petition. As you can do this yourself for nothing online or at very small cost via a number of organisations then at this stage the benefit in taking their advice must be negligible.
Also bear in mind that when you went into the IVA it went on your credit file where it stays for 6 years. Likewise the second insolvency proceeding, bankruptcy, will be registered and will stay there for 6 years from registration, so going bankrupt will certainly extend the stain on your credit file.
Having said all that I will be the first to acknowledge that a number of IVA firms may well have, historically, sailed "close to the wind", but so far as your IVA is concerned I can only suggest that it's "what you see is what you get". You made an offer to your creditors and they accepted it. You don't say what discount on your debts you are getting in the IVA but at least you had some input into it whereas in bankruptcy you are more likely to get "processed". Also, what do you do for a living? Have you checked your contract of employment to see whether bankruptcy will affect it? Has the new advice source brought this to your attention?
Hope this is food for thought. If my basic assumptions are correct, and your concern is that the seeds of doubt have been sown by an unsolicited letter from the IVA Council or some other like organisation, then I would agree with you that there may be some mis-selling going on, but only you can decide by whom this is being done.
Ian
Ian Millington
Insolvency Director
PDHL Ltd (formerly Personal Debt Helpline Ltd)
www.pdhl.co.uk