Well, my IVA started in December 2010 and I have just gone through the 6th year barrier --- rather painlessly, to my surprise.
I signed up to Noddle, powered by Call Credit and have been checking progress since completing the IVA early a few years ago. Right up until the beginning of December my score has been in the 300's and credit rating of 1/5, with the IVA and all the defaults showing, ranging from the 10th December through to 17th January --- as they were all so close I decided to let the dates ride. About half were marked as satisfied or partially satisfied, the rest still active and all in default. My ex-wife was in the report as an associate. I wrote to Noddle early in the month to get the ex removed from my report and, in a friendly email exchange, just mentioned what I was doing --- cleaning up after the IVA and that some defaults were incorrectly dated. They replied by clearing my file there and then! All defaults completely vanished, as did my IVA and the ex wife! My score went to 630 out of 710 and credit rating to 5/5. The lower score is, apparently due to the low credit limit (£1000) on my only credit card.
In the last year I also signed up to Clearscore, powered by Equifax. These also had my ex -- who was removed with an email. But they had no IVA shown and about half my defaults, all shown as satisfied or partially satisfied. They gave me a score of 435 out of 700 and a "Good" rating. My new report came through today and is also, now, as clean as a whistle, albeit one default should have another week to run. I now have a score of 497 out of 700 and a rating of excellent. They also say my score is reduced due to that low credit limit.
Experian, I have just discovered, also provide a scoring service - Credit Matcher. They also do the usual report subscription service. To be honest I hadn't bothered to check them previously and only signed on to the website this afternoon to order a statutory report -- I won't have the details from that one for a few days, but they gave my score as 999 out of 999 -- can't get much better than that! By that I am assuming the defaults and IVA have gone from that one as well --- I will update later if this is not the case.
So,all in all, from a messy set of credit files in November to a full set of squeaky clean reports in January with not effort on my part at all -- apart from removing the association to my ex, which isn't really IVA related.
My opinions are merely that .. opinions based on experience. Always seek professional advice.
IVA Completed 23rd July 2013 .... C.C. 10th January 2014
