An IVA is normally only suitable for people with a predictable, fixed income. In order to get an IVA, you must usually have at least £70 left in disposable income after you have met your essential living costs each month. Your creditors may still agree if you don’t have enough disposable income as long as you have assets that you can sell to raise money towards paying your debts. We would be able to offer you more specific advice once we know your specific circumstances.

To work out if you have enough disposable income, you’ll need to make a budget. Add up any income from benefits, maintenance payments, and employment, any lump sums of cash (for example an inheritance or competition win), and any defined contribution pensions, and then subtract your everyday outgoings (like rent or mortgage payments, utility bills, food bills, and childcare costs). If you decide to go ahead with an IVA, your insolvency practitioner will need to see your budget.

IVAs are an expensive way to deal with problem debts. Beyond the insolvency practitioner’s fees, which can be very high, in order to complete your IVA you must make regular monthly payments for around five years. If your circumstances are likely to change or you don’t have a predictable source of income an IVA is probably not right for you.

You may have to sell more expensive assets (like cars, valuable jewellery, or any property that isn’t your family home), and in some cases you may have to remortgage your home at the end of your IVA.

Some other disadvantages of an IVA are that you will find it more difficult to get credit if you’ve had an IVA, which can affect things like catalogue shopping and obtaining a mortgage, as well as the more obvious things like getting a personal loan or credit card.

Certain professions are also not allowed to practice if they have gone through an insolvency procedure, which includes IVAs. Common professions covered by these restrictions are accountancy and legal services, but you should check your contract of employment and with any professional bodies to find out if you may be affected. Learn More

If you rent your home, nothing will happen as long as you keep paying your rent.

If you own your home, you will almost certainly be asked to get a valuation on your house in the last year of your IVA. If remortgaging the house would raise more than £5,000, you will be asked to remortgage it and any money raised will be put towards paying back your debts. You will not have to sell your home. If remortgaging would extend the mortgage beyond its existing term, or put you beyond the state retirement age when it ends, you will not be expected to remortgage the property.

If you can’t remortgage your house for any reason (refusal by the bank, or complications with a jointly owned property, for example), you will have to pay your usual monthly payments under the terms of the IVA for an additional year.

It is possible but unlikely that you will be able to keep your home out of the IVA and thus avoid remortgaging it. If your insolvency practitioner feels that you will be able to pay back enough of your debts without including your house in your IVA, they may propose that it be excluded from the IVA when negotiating with your creditors, but this rarely happens.

There are many situations in which an IVA is preferable to going bankrupt. If you wish to protect a particular asset or piece of property, you own your own business, or you work in a profession where going bankrupt may lead to you losing your job, an IVA is a far better method than bankruptcy for dealing with problem debts.

If you have or may need to get power of attorney on behalf of someone you care for, avoiding bankruptcy allows you to carry on being their attorney.

An IVA also avoids you having to close your bank account (which bankruptcy demands). You do not have to tell your bank about your IVA.