www.iva.co.uk

What is the worst scenario

1. Being in an IVA - Over in 60 months

2. Being Bankrupt - Over in 12 months Discharged and maybe 3 years of additional payments

3. In a DMP - Reduced Payments Not Legally Binding to Stave Off Creditors

4. Plodding on year in year out living in minus
trying to stave off creditors that are chasing you for monies owed plus interest as you try not to go anywhere near the top 3 solutions
and have sleepless nights with worries and anxiety trying to preserve
a poor credit rating anyway for years and years while all yor income is mainly going to creditors and you are left with hardly anything.
Your Family Life Suffers Also.

Being bankrupt could also mean losing your job.

If you were in loads of debt Lord Soth what one of the above would you choose.
Regardless of Losing Your Job!!!
I Personally would opt for any of the top 3 insteasd of option 4.

OK Bankruptcy could mean to some people losing there job but not all people work in the Financial and Public Sector(Police, Army )

It all depends on circumstances. I was lucky that my job wasn't affected by BR or an IVA, but if it had been I would have chosen a DMP, regardless of whether it's legally binding or not.

Mine would be affected by BR, so if I hadn't have had an IVA, or if it fails for some reason, then I will go back to DMP.

I also do not want to lose my house. I'm not in negative equity, so I wouldn't have that to fall back on in BR. We've lived here for 20 years and are very happy. There is no way I want to lose that.

The truth is Skippy and Kallis is that you are both Brave Enough to confront the problem and do something about it which is totally commendable be it IVA, BANKRUPTCY,DMP as you have both WISED UP!!If your credit rating is poor and you can't borrow and have come to the end of the road you have to confront the Problem.

How many millions of people are there living in Option 4 of my First Post going on and on and on for Years and Years and Years and they will never get credit anyway as they owe so much money there credit rating is Low Anyway.

I have no doubt that there are an awful lot of people out there still struggling, but sooner or later they will reach the end of the road and have to opt for one of 'packages' offered to get themselves out of debt.

And we are going to see a lot more people turning to this site for help.

I imagine for some people the perceived 'shame' of the 3 solutions is far worse than struggling, which is very, very sad indeed.

Its very easy to feel that youre the only one in debt to any extent. So I am one of the ones that struggled for ages feeling that it would get better. It wasnt until I totally maxed out my cards and wondered why I could only live for 2 weeks on my salary. Once I Sat down and number crunched it all out, income was less than commitments I had the biggest panic ever. I still didnt know what to do, I had never heard of an IVA DMP and thought BR was for buisnesses. I thought suicide was the only way out.

So its wrong to assume that people struggling will automatically 'face or fess'. Like Angelrainbow says, its a horrible, shameful, guilty place to be, most simply do not know and are hounded to within an inch of their sanity, sometimes their life. I saw an advert on TV, googled and found this site, I was lucky, it was just chance that I found myself here.

I have no regrets at all about choosing bankruptcy, it was the best thing we could have done,

discharged in 6 months, No IPA, no risk to jobs, we were losing the house anyway so it was chance of a fresh start. We are now in the best house we have ever lived in, its ours for life and its really cheap too.

this is an interesting thread...for us we lived with option 4 for years....simply because we had no idea that there was such a thing as an IVA,....we were far too ashamed to admit to being in debt to even consider BR...and even tho we are 25 mths into the IVA its only since i found this forum in may this year that we have even begun to deal with the feelings of failure and shame....and its only recently that we have even told anyone....
i do believe that the stigma and shame of debt is so paralyzing....and add on to that our ignorance .....and you get people living with option 4 for a long time...we certainly did and like lily we saw and advert on telly....and even then it took us months to pick up the phone and some months after that before we did any thing about it.....

now...we are shaking off the shame and getting a life.!!! thanks to IVA and thanks to this brilliant supportive forum

The only way that i can SUM THIS UP is
have you ever gone to the VERY TOP OF A BUNGEE JUMP
AND NOT SURE WHETHER TO JUMP OR NOT AS YOU ARE REALLY NERVOUS AND SCARED AND WHEN YOU DO JUMP
EVERYTHING WAS OK AND REALIZED THERE WAS NOTHING TO IT.

Hence Options 1 , 2 and 3

You make it sound so easy Andrew! I wish there was 'nothing to it', but being in an IVA or BR isn't easy.

Agreed Skippy, it is a long hard slog!

Totally agree with Skippy

There is a hell of a lot to it, even when you KNOW about options 1 2 3, I didnt. Its a HUGE step and a dark place. Some have JUMPED into the WROMG boat.

Hence this forum.

If it was common knowledge and there was nothing to it, there wouldnt be a need for a forum like this.