www.iva.co.uk

Hello and thank you to everyone who has offered advice and support since I made the first call and asked questions on this forum.

If you have debt problems and are considering an IVA then have a read of my journey:

I am a teacher, my wife works part time and we have 2 younge children, one in school and one in nursery. I have £54K debt (excluding the mortgage) and started a debt management programme in July with Smooth Financial but discovered after 3 months that they only paid my creditors £1 each and my situation was worsening rather than improving.

All of my credit cards were full and I was at the limit of my overdraft. With high childcare costs, a car costing lots in unexpected repairs things were getting desperate.

I made the first call to Melanie Giles' office on 3rd November and spoke to Tina. She was very supportive, totally professional and absolutely non judgemental.

I changed my bank from RBS to Co-op (cashminder account) on 4th November and have found it to be a good, easy, free account.

I Sent off my background statement to Tina on 5th November expaining how I got into my situation. This was such a relief and it helped me to show my wife what happened as she was not fully aware of the situation. Not an easy conversation!

Darryl, my case administrator, sent me a big list of documentation to collate and send to him on 10th November.

I received an expenses sheet and some advice on how to deal with creditors from Tina on 8th Novmeber. I was pleasantly surprised by the allowances for a family of 4. There are some scare stories on the forum about how much some people struggle with their alloances but we should be okay, which is such a relief.

Got my house valued and discovered I am in £3K negative equity!

I didn't really get many calls from creditors as I received alot of calls just before my DMP in July. I got a few letters threatening defaults and debt collectors etc but I forwarded them to Darryl and he took care of them.

It took until 27th November for me to collect all of the documentation for the IVA (mortgage statement and loan balance took the longest).

There was some freak snow before Christmas, especially in Wales, so things were delayed a little more than normal but I've got 112 e-mail to and from Melanie Giles' office with questions, answers, scanned docs, reassurance, etc. I have e-mails right up to 23rd December.

I had my telephone meeting with Melanie Giles on Saturday 22nd January. It lasted for over an hour and she was lovely, like the rest of her team. She answered all of my questions in normal terms and alleviated all of my concerns.

Tuesday 25th January I received my proposal. An impressive document detailing and covering everything. I read it from cover to cover twice and sent it back the next day.

Creditors meeting was set for Monday 14th February. Valentines day came but RBS claimed they didn't receive a copy of the proposal! Meeting adjourned for 2 weeks until Monday 28th Feb.

Claire pulled all the strings and used her charm to get the RBS vote back before 2 weeks and today I was so pleased to hear that my IVA has been approved!

Modifications are that I can only spend £70 on life/CI/MP cover and not £96 so I have to pay an extra £26 each month. My monthly payment will be £566 and I must repay a minimum of 43p in the £ after IP fees.

In the scheme of my debt problem the last couple of months have flown by. I have been supported all the way and absolutely sure that an IVA was my best option. I am now on the road to debt freedom and can budget for the next 5 years and don't have to worry about things getting any worse.

I would like to say a massive thankyou to Claire, Tina, Darryl and Melanie. If you are considering applying for an IVA I can highly recommend this team.

Congrats - hope there is not to many "potholes" on your IVA road.

Iva is NOT easy, but it puts your back in control, and who knows to may win the lottery half way through it .

What a brilliantly detailed and well written note - from one of the nicest clients I have had the pleasure of acting for recently. Given the time that this must have taken to put together, I can only assume it must be half-term!!!

Seriously - many, many thanks for the kind words for me but particularly my team. They work so hard, and it is lovely when they get some public recognition which is so well deserved. So glad we got there for you in the end - and there will be more success stories posted today from others. Watch this space!!!

That's fantastic news, congratulations.

Why not start a blog now? Posts come and go but blogs remain and everyone loves reading them.

That's a great post! I think this will really help people who are unsure about starting in an IVA, it's great to have that set out in a step by step process....

Good luck with your IVA journey

Congratulations zzalsnp and thanks for posting that, it is similar to my story but I am a couple of weeks behind you.

I did my research when I knew I had to go down this line and am so glad I choose Melanie and her team they have been a godsend, it has paid off with professional service and advice. I have dealt with Tina, Tamsyn and Claire and they have all been fantastic, they are always happy to answer any silly question that comes in to my head.

I hope to have my creditors meeting in the next two/three weeks and then moving on positively with my life.

Congrats on being accepted!! You'll experience a wide range of emotions over the next week if you're anything like I was!! I had loads of questions after that were little niggles really and used the forum for help and support. There's always people here for you. Good luck!!

Hi Melanie, yes it's half term, the only time I get any peace.

Hi Jan, I did start a blog a few weeks ago but it's gone and I didn't have the time to chase it up. It was http://zzalsnp.blogs.iva.co.uk/ called "Where did it all go?"

I set it out step by step as that was one of my biggest worries as I'd decided not to pay creditors during IVA setup. How long would it take to do and how long would I have to fend off my creditors?
I managed to save a small amount as an emergentcy contingency. This in itself was strange as I'd not been able to save anything for a couple of years because of deby and interest.

I am sure that if it were not the Christmas period it would have been completed a couple of weeks sooner.

Good luck to anyone thinking about an IVA or in the process of setting one up. I am so relieved I can't find the words, I have seen at least two other people ask EVERY question I have had.

Good luck Toby. You're in good hands. I see the monthly payment like a big consolidation payment taking care of everything I owe. If I manage to earn a little extra then as long as I can pay my bills I will happily pay 50% the extra over 10%, which numerically is very reasonable to the debtor.

Ginger, Salkitten, relieved - thanks for your conitnued support. This forum is great and I wish I'd found it and you lot in July.

Be great to read that blog and I wish you well with your IVA journey.

Make sure you stick around here when you can - and I do hope the forum genies can find your missing blog.

That's very strange zzalsnp, usually you can see your blog if you click on the link but it doesn't show up in the list. Yours seems to have disappeared!

What I always do is write it out in a word document first, save that and then copy and paste. That way if something does happen, you have it saved.

Congratulations and we hope your road to being debt free to a smooth one. Good luck xx

Brilliant news for you! x

Thats a great post and congratulations on being approved. x

Hi zzalsnp
We regret very much that your blog has disappeared. Unfortunately as it was a few weeks ago we are unable to trace it [:(]
Perhaps you could cut and paste your detailed post above into a new blog ? It makes inspirational reading [:)] and would then be readily accessible.
As Kallis suggests, it is always a wise move to save these invaluable blogs prior to posting them.