Can I continue to trade whilst in an IVA?
If you are self-employed and in financial difficulties, the sense of pressure can be immense. Not only are you carrying the day to day pressures of running a business and trying to earn a living, you also have the burden of your debt problem to worry about.
So what help can you get if your situation becomes too much to bear? Can you get relief from the burden of your debt?
Well, fortunately, you can and it comes in the shape of an Individual Voluntary Arrangement, or IVA.
Debt Relief Through An IVA
An IVA has the potential to put you back in financial control. It allows you to repay your debts as part of an affordable, structured repayment programme, whilst allowing you to continue to trade and earn a living.
By taking the burden of your unsecured debts out of your monthly expenditure, your income can be spent running your business and covering your personal costs.
Your ability to make payments into your IVA are assessed as part of the IVA preparations, with the IVA payments being set at what is deemed affordable to you, based on your personal circumstances. Your business expenditure and your personal living costs are given priority and deducted from your income, with the IVA payment making up the remainder.
Your IVA will have a fixed repayment term and, because your IVA payments are based on affordability there's a real possibility that your IVA term will complete before all of your debt has been repaid.
If this is the case, under the legally binding terms of your IVA, your creditors are obliged to write-off any outstanding balances at the end of your IVA, leaving you debt free.
This potential debt write-off represents one of the major advantages of an IVA.
IVA protects your assets
Once your IVA has been agreed at the Creditors' Meeting, it provides legal protection from your creditors. Under the standard terms and conditions of the IVA, creditors must refrain from taking legal action against you, stops interest payments on your debts and stops late payment charges being added to your outstanding balances.
This means that your IVA stops your creditors petitioning for your bankruptcy, protecting you and your assets from the bankruptcy process under which they might be vulnerable.
Take this link and read why an Individual Voluntary Arrangement is such a practical solution for the self employed.
Do you qualify for an IVA?
If you would like to explore the IVA solution further, or if you would like to see if you qualify for an IVA, please call 0800 088 7502 and one of our IVA team will be pleased to help you.
Alternatively, please complete this form and we'll call you back at your preferred time.
