When you put forward an IVA, you will be proposing to pay a certain amount back to your creditors over a certain period of time. Your Insolvency Practitioner will help you to work out a proposal that is likely to be manageable for you.
It is imperative that you only commit to making payments that you can realistically afford, if the IVA is going to be effective. Your IP will take a look at your income, expenses, assets and debts and help you to do this.
When you make your IVA payments, you do not pay them to your creditors direct, but into a single pot of funds. Your IP will administer the transferring of the funds back to your creditors, so all you need to worry about is keeping to your IVA payment each month.
Sometimes when an IVA is proposed, the creditors may ask for certain changes to be made to it before they will vote to accept it. If this does happen your IP will keep you informed so that you only sign up to something you can actually manage.
If your financial circumstances change during the term of the IVA, either for better or worse, your IP may suggest changes to the payments. If you are at any point finding that you may not manage to keep up with the payments, your IP can negotiate with your creditors on your behalf. It is sometimes possible to arrange payment holidays in these circumstances, and so failing to make the payments every single month need not mean that the IVA has failed.
IVA payments are supposed to involve paying back a fair portion of your debts, but they are also supposed to allow you to maintain a reasonable standard of living as well, and so do tend to make clearing your debts possible.