www.iva.co.uk

Finally received my certificate of completion of my IVA. It was completed in October of last year but I gave an extra payment in November which was refunded to me. It has taken Mazars until now to finally sort it.

Does it normally take this long??

I paid in £23,100 over the 5 years on debts that totalled £23,301. Only down point is £8,000 to Mazars.

Apparently all creditors get sent this certificate. Do I need to do anything in regards to cleaning my credit file. I am aware it stays on your file for 6 years, a few of my creditors defaulted my over 6 years now, should these be removed from my file now or do I need to contact them to ensure this is done?

Everthing will drop off your credit file 6 years after it was registered.

If you have defaults registered after the date of the creditors meeting you can contact them to have them change the default date to that date.

That way everything will come off altogether at the same time.

Excellent news hammer.

Just make sure that there are no defaults registered after the date of the IVA.

Just think of the interest you have saved paying when knocking the IP fees. It may then not seem such a bad outcome after all!

Well done on completion and it may have taken a while but you've got the certificate now and what a great feeling it must be...enjoy.

All the best for your debt free future.

Your d-day is fast approaching now too Helen! x

Can't believe how quickly it is approaching now!

Thanks all.

What is the cheapest/easiest way to look at credit file. This credit expert charges a monthly fee, and apparently it is a nightmare to get out of the free trail period and also you can only do it once.

Any other cheap options out there??

I applied for the paper copies of mine. They cost £2 a time from Experian, Equifax and CallCredit.

On my Equifax report

Got a total of 7 accounts
2 creditors say settled and satisfied in April/August 2004. Does this mean they fall off April/August 2010??
1 says defaulted June 2004
1 says defaults May 2004

Will these fall off in May/June 2010??

The others are phone contracts, bank accounts which are all still going well

Also my IVA says satisfied and indicates it has been removed from solvency register.

What is shocking is the £14 price to get your credit score[:0]

£14? CRA's have a obligation to send your credit file within 7 working days of writing to them if you send them £2. There are 3 of them and all 3 could report differently so need to check them all.

Hi
Obtaining your credit score is different to obtaining your credit file.
Inaiva is correct in that you must check all three, experian is the main one and most comprehensive, in my opinion
Regards

He's also right that to check your credit record will only cost you a couple of pounds a time, not £14.

Different lenders will "score" differently based on what you put down on a application form.

They all have their own lending criteria.

I guess the main one will be what they find on your credit file, with the CRA that they use.

As such this is where you should start to clear up your credit file.

You'll need to obtain 2 reports from each CRA, one at the start of the process, the other to check everything has been updated at the end.

You can also check after the 6 year anniversery of the latest default date, which if you do it properly will be the day your IVA agreement was approved at the creditors meeting.

I would suggest that all letters to creditors and cra's are sent "recorded delivery" as proof that they received the letters on a given day.

The Information Commissioner gives creditors 28 days to reply to your letter to update your credit file, and if they disagree they have to tell you why.

If they don't reply write to the Information Commissioner, who will take around 3 months to adjudicate - He is very busy!!

But end result will be your default dates will coincide with the date of your IVA Approval. Which is good news cause in 6 years from that date it will be as though you never had a default or a IVA.

No record of it anywhere, so free to turn over a new leaf.