My IVA was approved on the 6th June, but was subject to some modifications. Here’s how the Creditors voted.

Firstly, creditors who didn’t vote were Additions Direct, Black Horse, Cahoot and Freemans. Combined they represented about 12% of my debt.

The major modifications that affected me came from The Insolvency Exchange who were representing Sainsbury’s Bank, Halifax, HSBC, Tesco, Mint and Style. The initial request was to raise my payments by £56 per month, reducing my house keeping and misc expediture. I requested a £30 increase and a £40 increase was agreed. This increases my monthly payment to £735. They suggested that other parts of my expediture could have been scrutinised as well, so I think what they were saying is ‘you got off lightly!’ I think if the increase had been more I would have seriously considered rejecting it and going BR. I wouldn’t have wanted to set myself up for a fall! Anyway, the £40 per month is managable, it just means working that little bit harder to make it work.

After modifications my IVA was agreed at 61p in the £.

My advice to anyone is if Creditors request more is to think long and hard about it. I spent alot of time working on my expediture and making sure I had it right. For someone then to want to change those numbers you need to think about the affect it will have on you and whether it is realistic. 

When I was intitally asked about the £56 per month increase I almost just accepted it. Because you want to get everything finalised and confirmed you perhaps don’t think things through as much as you should. Thanks to the great company that dealt with my IVA proposal I didn’t fall into this trap. They encouraged me to think about it throughly. Luckily negotiations were possible on this occassion.

Before I approched an IP I put together my own income and expediture spreadsheet. I would encourge anyone else to do something similar. Therefore, if you are faced with the same issue you can re-jig the numbers and see what it looks like in black and white. You will be able to see more clearly where the extra money could be realistically taken from.

I’ll be glad when I’m a few months into this, as at the moment I am still very frightened that I will fail.