Finding your finances out of control is a pretty unpleasant experience. It can seem as though you have fewer and fewer options, but this may not necessarily be the case.
Getting the right advice is imperative. Speaking to debt and insolvency experts is the first step in sorting your financial situation out. Depending on your income, assets and current level of borrowing, you may well have a few options to explore before having to consider such consequences as bankruptcy.
IVA
Individual Voluntary Arrangements or IVAs are a popular choice for people with serious debt problems, and there are a number of advantages to using them. An Insolvency Practitioner can take into account your overall finances and work out whether an IVA is likely to help.
Providing you have sufficient income to meet the terms of an IVA, it can help you to start working towards settling the debts that you feel are on top of you. With an IVA, you agree to pay a certain amount back to your creditors over a set period of time, after which they will no longer pursue the debts.
Control
Many people face the daily reality that they are struggling to meet their monthly debt payments each year, and find that what they are paying is only covering interest, and is not reducing the debt at all. Over and above this, if you’re struggling to even meet your monthly payments, the debts really start to spiral out of control and it can seem like you’ll never see the back of them.
An IVA means that not only can you avoid bankruptcy, but you can also effectively settle your debts. Having the knowledge that you are working towards being debt free makes life a lot less stressful, knowing that in the future you’ll be in a position where you control your finances rather than the other way around.
Assets
You may find that your situation affords you more choices than you think, and an IVA is really only one of these. If you have assets, you will likely find that there are other avenues to explore before opting for an IVA, but this depends on your own personal choices.
For example, options such as releasing equity, remortgaging or indeed selling your assets can give you a considerable amount more breathing space. However, these may not be options that you personally want to explore, in which case an IVA may help.