When you have your appointment with an insolvency practitioner to get an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA), there’s information you’ll need and things to do to prepare. Your appointment might be face to face or over the telephone.
This page tells you what information you need and what to do before your appointment.
Paperwork you’ll need
When you contact an insolvency practitioner to set up an IVA, they’ll probably tell you what information you need to pass on to them. This is likely to include:
- proof of your income, such as payslips, benefits letters or recent bank statements
- proof of savings such as bank statements
- details of your mortgage or rent agreement
- information about what assets you own, such as a car, and how much they are worth
- details of your debts and creditors – who your creditors are, how much you owe and all the letters and papers you have relating to your debts and creditors
- a budget sheet listing all your income and spending.
If you’re having a face to face appointment, you should make sure you have all this paperwork ready in advance – give yourself enough time to find and prepare everything you need. You should take all these documents with you to the meeting. If your appointment is by telephone, the insolvency practitioner should explain how they want you to send any documents they need.
Your budget
Before your appointment with the insolvency practitioner, you should do a budget. This lists all your monthly income and spending. It will help you work out what spare income you have each month to pay your creditors. It’s very important you can afford to pay the amount you offer to pay creditors through an IVA. Think about all the regular expenses you have each week or month – for example, energy bills. You should and also think of things that aren’t regular expenses, for example, children’s clothes and shoes.
Take your time to make sure you’ve listed everything that needs to be taken into account, so you can explain to the insolvency practitioner what all your expenses are.
Be honest
You must be honest with your insolvency practitioner about your circumstances. If you keep any information from them, you might end up with an IVA that you can’t stick to.
It is a criminal offence to deliberately withhold or give false or misleading information about your circumstances, in order to get creditors to agree to your IVA proposal. If you do this, you could get fined or even sent to prison.