www.iva.co.uk

Hi all,I've been reading through the forums and trying to get a feel for which company to use for an IVA. I am seeing a lot of positive posts about CCCS. Who are they, are they any good, how do I contact them? What about DFD, any good? Current situation, unsecured debts of £75k+.

Hi and welcome
Both companies are excellent, the only downside is that they are both very large and you may not get a personal service compared to a smaller provider
Check out www.iva.com for feedback on most IVA providers
Regards

hi simon, I used a company that was very very fast and at the time was pleased with how it went thru, that said it would of been better for me to of built up the contigency fund up a little as you can stop paying your creditors once the iva ball is rolling and proposals being prepared.

if i was to turn the clock back a little i would of definatly contacted melanie Giles who posts on here as she appears to be extremly thourgh and very committed to her clients

I hope this made sense

good luck
Deex

The best thing to do is to try both of them to see how you feel about the level of service. A good marker would be to ask if it would be possible to speak to the IP personally - as they will effectively be controlling your finances for the next five years.

There are some very good IPs around - look to those who specialise in IVAs.

Hi Simon. I can recommend Melanie Giles. Everyone I spoke to were very understanding and not judgmental at all. Her team are professional any my IVA went through smoothly.

Thanks all for the warm welcome and good advice, got a funny feeling this forum is going to be a regular source of info and inspiration for me!

Fingerscrossed/anyone,contingency fund? Can you really stop paying creditors while the proposal is being prepared without having an adverse affect on the process? Be interesting to know this as my monthly payments to creditors amount to over £1600!

The amount you may be able to put away in the initial build up, your contingency fund of non payment to creditors to allow your iva to be proposed, won't be related to the 1600 payments of course but will be related to your disposable income. So if you can afford, say 500 per month, then if your iva takes two months to sort out then you should be starting with at least some cash in the bank, if not the full 1000.

Hope this makes sense.

Regards.

Hi Simon. As Size5 says,the fact that you are paying £1600 per month to creditors does not mean you actually have that much left after you have paid your living expenses. It is likely that you have been operating a large overdraft, withdrawing cash from credit cards to meet direct debits and obtaining consolidation loans.

Only when you actually sit down and see what is your priority expenditure, which excludes all unsecured borrowings, will you know what your surplus is to offer creditors. If you have not already done so you should open a new bank account with a bank that you do not owe any money to as that account will be used to meet your expenditure in the future. Good luck.

We stopped paying our creditors as soon as we decided to go for the IVA. You will get letters and phone calls, no getting away from that, but as long as you stand up them, or ignore them, you should b ok.

Just a reminder about having "cash in the bank" at the start of an IVA. This is an asset which should be disclosed on the statement of affairs and probably offered up on top of ongoing contributions.

Melanie,

Would you expect Simon38 to hand over his (up to) £1000 at the start of his IVA?

Regards.

It would depend upon whether there was an immediate need for the money to be retained which could be justified. If so, I would disclose this within the proposal and let creditors decide whether it should be paid over or not.

How would you deal with this at Cleardebt?

Much of a muchness. Ultimately the creditors decide, but my own opinion, for what it is worth, is that it makes much more sense if clients can begin a long journey from a position of relative strength rather than a position of weakness and vulnerability to things like car repairs, broken boiler, imminent school trips etc.

Regards.

Agreed - but full disclosure is the key to success and maintaining good relations with creditors for the provision of quality work.