www.iva.co.uk

Hi there, when my IVA was set up I opened another account for my wages to go into because my current one, Abbey, is linked to a debt. As the IVA has now been in force for 3 months, could I use the Abbey one without fear of it being frozen/money being taken from it? Abbey havent been in contact so I assume theyre still happy for me to use it, I prefer this one as it has a debit card, whereas my new halifax one has visa electron, which I hate!

Hi,

As Abbey is one of your Creditors I would not touch that account with a bargepole. I am surprised they have not shut your account down. You could always give them a call and see what they say but other than that stick with Halifax.

I believe Co-op now do a full Visa card so you could apply to them and also the Natwest are starting to also replacing the old Solo cards.

Hi
Technically you could use it and Abbey can't take any funds from it against the debt, however in reality this does happen even when the debt is covered by an IVA and the hassle to get it back is huge. As rayb states the best advice is not to use it
Regards

I must admit that we kept our Barclays account open, they were one of my creditors but not hubby's. We put any spare money across and at least it means that I can use a debit card sometimes when I am out, or for internet shopping.

hey smithy i probably would be inclined not to use the account. there are several banks which do basic accounts if all you want it for is to put a little aside. natwest and co-op and yorkshire bank do basic accounts. the co-op one is very good

Contact Abbey to see what their view is on this point. They may be happy for you to use the account, but you don't want to risk your funds being swiped and then having a battle to get them back.