Hallway Although your husband's income has been taken into account during the proposal of your IVA, any additional income he earns is unlikely to be required to be paid into the agreement. James Falla Expert in IVA, Bankruptcy and informal Debt Management solutions for over 10 years. For more inform...

Paul It sounds like you need to do a simple income and expenditure exercise. Take a piece of paper and total your income. Then list all of your living expenses (but non of your unsecurred debt payments - credit cards, loans etc). Take your living expenses away from your income and you will be left w...

Allen.f is quite right here. Sure, if you enter into an IVA, your credit rating will be effected. But this is no worse than if you had struggled on missing payments. The IVA is only recorded on your file for 6 years. If you had gone into a Debt Management Plan, your credit rating would remain effect...

Faith If you have a property and are considering an IVA, then almost certainly you will have a clause which requires you to get a new valuation in the 5th year and release equity if there is any available to finalise the IVA. However, if your propoerty does not go up in value and there is still litt...

Sarah_Nick Quite often creditors will accept a lump sum settlement in the middle of your IVA which pays less than the dividend originally offered. This is because, as old arguement goes - a bird in the hand..... You should discuss the situation with your IP. Tell them that your parents may be willin...

Hi there. Do you mean how long does it take to get into an IVA or Bankrutpcy once you have started the process or how long does the solution last once you are in it? James Falla Expert in IVA, Bankruptcy and informal Debt Management solutions for over 10 years. For more information visit www.jamesfa...

The different comments from everyone here just goes to prove that there is no rhyme or reason to the chasing tactics of creditors. In my experiance, different people get different treatment from the same creditor and there is no telling why. The best advice is hang on in there until your creditor me...

Hi a.j It definitly sounds like an IVA is a solution you should consider. Northern Rock are not an easy creditor to deal with but that is not to say that an IVA will be impossible. As Darren says, I suggest that you speak to one or two different companies and see what they say. There is no reason at...

Louise Do not lose heart. It is normal to receive default notices from creditors while you are going through your IVA application. These are usually standard computer generated letters and will always threaten court action. However, i do agree that 12 weeks seems a long time to have to wait. Normall...

Hi Lucy It sounds as though your endowment is not assigned to Northern Rock. However, to be sure, I would call AXA and ask them about the part of the form that asks for signature of assignee together with company stamp. Keep positive. You are now on the right road James Falla Expert in IVA, Bankrupt...

Thanks for the extra info JD. Given that you have c£20000 of equity in your property you definitly want to avoid bankruptcy. If you went down this route, there would be a very real risk of loosing the house so the creditors could get their hands on the equity. Given this you really should be conside...

Hi jd To give you the right advice at this stage, it is vital to know a little more above your circumstances. It may be possible to do a Debt Management plan or better to consider Bankruptcy (this sounds terrible but it may actually be a very real and sensible option for you. Most importantly, do yo...

Adrian Loads of people enter into IVAs where they have not missed monthly payments. The question is how are you maintaining these. If you are robbing Peter to pay Paul each month to ensure that the payments are maintained, then you can be pretty sure that you do not really have anough money to pay y...

Lucy As Melanie says, cashing an endowment to add a lump sum to an IVA proposal is common. The only time that you would be prevented from doing this by the mortgage lender is if the endowment is linked to the mortgage. This is very rare nowerdays. It is not unusual for someone to cash their endowmen...

Louisa As Andy says, before you do anything, you should discuss the situation with your IP. It may well be possible to propose a variation to reduce your payments. If this is not possible, then expecially if you have no property, bankruptcy is a real option. If you have no property, then as Melanie ...