so frightened we are being advised to go bankrupt

[samantha]

myself and my husband have been in an iva with debt free direct for nearly three years. the total debts that went in were around £75,000. Last year we sold our house and introduced a lump sum of £14,000 on top of the £5,500 we had already paid in. I am not working and we have arrears of £888 on the IVA. We have sent in a new income and expenditure form and can pay £134 per month. We have said we will increase the term of the IVA but we are being advised to go bankrupt. I am so frightened of this. We also have some more outstanding credit that we have not put into our IVA.

If we do go bankrupt will we get into trouble for having other credit? would you advisewe go bankrupt. We have no house or assets for anyone to take? Could we come out of the IVA and renegotiate with our creditors separately? Is this possible? Please help and advise me. Debt Free Direct have also told us that our bankruptcty would not be advertised in our local paper, how can this be????

[MelanieGiles]

Hi Samantha and welcome to the forum

I think the advice you have received is good, however your Supervisor ought to be the one petitioning unless the IVA proposal specifically stops him from doing this (unlikely). £134 is not sufficient to maintain an ongoing IVA.

The fact that you have other credit which was not declared, will probably mean that you will receive a Bankruptcy Restrictions Undertaking or Order. This just suspends your discharge from bankruptcy for a longer period than the usual one year. Why did you leave these debts out, and how were you paying them off at the same time you were making IVA contributions?

Your IP is incorrect in telling you that the bankruptcy will not be advertised, and I do not feel that an ongoing DMP is a sensible option for you given the amount of disposable income you have compared to the level of outstanding creditors. You will be paying for ever, even if you got creditors to agree to receiving token amounts.

Regards, Melanie Giles, Insolvency Practitioner for over 20 years.

For further details contact me at http://www.melaniegiles.com and view my IVA blog at: http://melaniegiles.blogs.iva.co.uk