Finally facing up to things

[Adam M]

So glad I found this place, any advice would be great.

My situation is this:

I owe approx £65k in loans/credit cards, a large amount of this down to stupidity and the naive thought that if I was earning a decent wage I could keep up with things - the short of it is that I cannot continue even though I'm just about making all the min repayments at the moment it'll not be long before I cannot.

The IVA wizard reckons my repayment would be approx £440 a month when I entered that spare income was just over £1000 .. is that realistic? I find it hard to believe my creditors would let me have the extra if I owe them money....

Some other questions:

- How quickly can an IVA be setup?
- Will my employer know?
- I have a corporate Amex card that I use when travelling for work, will I be allowed to keep this?
- Is an IVA really my best option? I'm not a home owner
- One option I have is to try and find somewhere cheaper to live, but will a new landlord be OK with the fact I'm starting an IVA?

This is all very scary, so any help would be great.

Thanks in advance
Adam

[MelanieGiles]

Hi Adam and welcome to the forum

I don't know how thee "IVA wizard" works, but you have to pay in your full disposable income to an IVA, as a detailed list of your income and expenditure needs to be submitted to creditors as part of the proposals. So if your disposable income is £1,000, then this is what you can expect to pay.

An IVA can be set up fairly quickly - within a month if necessary, and your employer does not need to know. You can keep your Amex card, so long as it is paid off every month.

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

[Adam M]

OK, that's as I thought - debt wizard a little misleading there!

In addition my salary I get a car allowance, this is intended to cover any business mileage I do. Now this allowance pays for the running of my car to do company business but it is part of my 'income' .. what's the deal there? Do I keep it but not allowed to allow for car running costs etc... in my budget? Or something else?

Thanks!
Adam

[sonyse2t5]

Adam,
CC Interest rates are burning holes in people pockets.Lenders are looking for 2% interest per month if they are not already asking for it - MBNA, Halifax, TSB are miking people dry!!

IVA is a FINAL DEBT SOLUTION.

[MelanieGiles]

The car allowance will be disclosed as will your associated motoring costs.

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

[Adam M]

The car allowance will be disclosed as will your associated motoring costs.

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

I'm sorry .. does disclosed mean it will not be part of the calculation for repayment? Or it will be?

Is there any way I can talk over the phone about this? Your company was the one I was considering using for this anyway.

Many thanks,
Adam

[MelanieGiles]

Hi there

When I say disclosed I mean that it will be included in your salary - as I assume that it is paid via your salary - for instance salary of £2,000 plus car allowance of £300 would be shown as salary of £2,300, and then the associated costs would be shown as expenditure - so if you were paying a car lease of £200 and petrol of £100 this would be listed thus effectively cancelling out the allowance.

Feel free to give us a ring on the number on my website if you like. My colleagues ought to be able to assist further.

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

[Adam M]

Adam,
CC Interest rates are burning holes in people pockets.Lenders are looking for 2% interest per month if they are not already asking for it - MBNA, Halifax, TSB are miking people dry!!

IVA is a FINAL DEBT SOLUTION.

While I do not blame them for my position it certainly hasn't helped .. worst one was Cahoot who I had a 7.9% fixed rate loan with and they hiked it to 15% without warning !!

Adam

[Adam M]

Hi there

When I say disclosed I mean that it will be included in your salary - as I assume that it is paid via your salary - for instance salary of £2,000 plus car allowance of £300 would be shown as salary of £2,300, and then the associated costs would be shown as expenditure - so if you were paying a car lease of £200 and petrol of £100 this would be listed thus effectively cancelling out the allowance.

Feel free to give us a ring on the number on my website if you like. My colleagues ought to be able to assist further.

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

1 last question .. if I'm still making the min payments now (but only by robbing other credit lines to make ends meet) should I be stopping payments if I'm about to enter into an IVA? Or continue until one is setup?

Many thanks for all the answers!
Adam

[aguise]

Hi Adam your company will advise of whether to stop or not, some say to stop others prefer you to make token payments in line witht eh amount of debt owed.

Ang

Please visit my blog at http://aguise.blogs.iva.co.uk/

[sonyse2t5]

There isn't any hard and fast to say you should keep paying them the min' amount,or just a token payment or nothing at all when you tell the creditors you are going for an IVA.

I would suggest making a payment you can afford because you will continue to accure interest and arrears from them until your IVA is on the table.Creditors will cliam for everything they defined as owned to them.

It will be a goodwill gesture in your part.

[lenalena]

Hi Adam

Your loan with Cahoot you say was a fixed 7.9% rate?
please re check your credit agreement (CCA) as i find it strange that they are able to change the rate if it is fixed?
(Please note they may be able to do this if you have exceeded the loan term.)
I deal with CCA on a daily basis so please let me know if you need any further help.



KR, Lenalena

http://www.debthelpexpert.org