www.iva.co.uk

we are currently on a dmp, we pay £1000 a month. Our debt in £120,000, Interest in still being charge on part of the debt, and the debt is getting larger, my question is would an IVA be a better option? we do have equity in our house but as its a family home, at this stage we don't want to sell,
and what would happen at the end of an IVA, if we could not remortgage, would we be forced to use a subprime lender.

Hi Judy and welcome to the forum.

At the end of an IVA, if you can't remortgage then you would normally have to continue for an extra 12 months.

What company are you with at the moment? I would speak to one or two more companies. Either contact the experts who post on here or visit www.iva.com and speak to one or two companies. The advice is free and impartial.

At the moment, people are not able to re-mortgage, even with a subprime lender, so IVA's are being extended for a further 12 months. In my case this meant I paid a further £10k into my IVA fund as oppose to releasing £34k from the equity.... a substantial saving for the sake of a further 12 months payments.

An IVA sounds like a good bet, given the amount you are paying in a DMP, but I am by no means an expert.... I am sure someone will come along very shortly and be able to answer your question.

Where are my manners.... forgot to say Hello and welcome.

I will stick my neck out here and say that I think an IVA would be a far better offer for you based on the bare facts you have presented, but of course this can only realy be determined by understanding your thoughts and priorities, and also understanding your asset position. I suggest that you arrange to have a chat with an insolvency practitioner to see what alternative solutions there are to the current DMP.

Are you with a fee paying company or one of the "charities"?

I tend to agree with Mel here. In the vast majority of cases, if there is a choice between both, then an IVA is almost always a better bet than a DMP. I am not knocking DMP's, after all it is a service that we provide as well as IVA's, so they definitely have their place, it is more just a case of the relative certainty you have with an IVA when compared to a DMP.

The clue for me in this thread is the fact that interest is still being charged, making the timescale impossible to estimate. Purely on that basis alone, an IVA must be at least worth consideration. Visit the link provided, talk to 2 or 3 firms and then make your own decision from there.

Regards.

I think one of the things you have to consider aswell, especially with such a large debt is, on a DMP what is the projected time for your debt to be cleared? and do you see your opportunities to generate a higher income to pay your debt off quicker improving in the next year or so?,

Generally a DMP is only any good to give you a bit of breathing space while you figure out a better solution to your debts, or if you can pay them off in a reasonable amount of time.

Our debts came to £60k almost and realistically we would have been looking at 15-20 years to pay them off on a DMP which was just ridiculous, instead we went down the IVA route and although things are not easy now for us, at least we know we are on a countdown to being free in 5 years.

I agree with Mel- at first glance an IVA would seem like a good alternative and I would talk to a few IVA companies to see what they can do for you.

Was the IVA option visited when you first received advice? What were the reasons for discounting it first time around?

Judy-if interest is still being added to your balances then it is nigh on impossible to estimate a date when you will finish paying,this happened to us which is why we moved from a dmp to an iva.
The silly thing is those who refused to freeze interest and charges in the dmp all voted *yes* to the iva, if they actively stopped all these charges then we wouldnt have to resort to going down the iva route, so in the long term the creditors often lose a hell of a lot of money through their own failure to come to an amicable arrangement for payments.
Bad business practice.

hi, we were in a DMP for about 17 months before the IVA started and looking back i wish i would have done it straight away, lots of hastle gone and a clear plan for the debt free future, good luck and dont be afraid x

Hi and welcome to the forum from myself too. An excellent link provided above for you to explore a couple of companies from. Get yourself some impartial case specific advice and do keep in touch with the forum as we're always here for help/advice/support as needed. x

This is a no brainer surely?? A dmp where the debt isnt reducing or will take 7 years plus to repay is useless. It isnt going to work other than to allow you to tread water for a while but thats all.

Paul

This is good advice; money spent is money went, and throwing good money after bad will only appease your creditors and make a profit for your DMP company,it will only manage to pay off the intrest if you are lucky, it depends on the amount of money that you owe, an IVA is the best option, put your DMP down to bad experience and cut your losses, I have been there and lost £1,500 on a DMP, an IVA is solid, depending if you qualify, good luck with the decision making process.
All the best[;)]
Ash4