We have helpful finance management advice on debt, loans and credit cards

Running my own reprographics business has been a roller coaster since I set the business up some three years ago having been made redundant by my previous company after having worked there for a number of years. I had worked there since leaving college and picked the business up well enough that I began to feel that I had outgrown the company by the end, so the news that I was being let go was something of a relief. To move from where I was then to the situation I find myself in now has been a journey not without problems, but more of a journey of self discovery. I have always been relatively conservative in my spending habits but since the advent of price comparison websites it has made the job of being financially astute completely accessible to everyone. I am able to organise my finances from my home computer to arrange loans, pay wages and bills and permanent health cover and transfer entire documents to clients at the click of a mouse. The accessibility of these comparison sites on the internet has meant that the man or woman in the street can check the prices of what they are paying against the prices they should be paying.

An Individual Voluntary Agreement, or IVA, is an attractive alternative to bankruptcy but there are a series of qualification criteria for applying to enter an IVA. To qualify for an IVA:

• The debtor’s unsecured debts must equal a minimum £15,000. In certain instances, an IVA may be approved for a sum of less than this, but only with a reduced fee for the account handler.
• IVA proceedings do not include Mortgages, secured loans and Hire Purchase debts.
• IVA proceedings include unsecured loans, credit cards and store cards, catalogues and overdrafts, as well as tax and VAT for the self employed.
• The debtor should not own material assets which could pay off their debt. Material assets such as equity release on a property or trading an expensive car should be considered before an IVA.
• There is no legal minimum number of creditors who need to be owed for an IVA to be approved but generally IVA firms prefer cases with more than one creditor involved as it gives them more opportunities to get the IVA approved.
• Debtors are required to be in employment for an IVA to be approved, except for exceptional circumstances. If the debtor is receiving long term sickness benefits or has a partner in employment to support the IVA application then creditors may accept it.
• A debtor’s IVA application is unlikely to be accepted without the right type of creditors. There are number of aggressive creditors who will refuse an IVA, regardless of the situation.