If you are in the last few months of your IVA, you will be looking forward to making that last payment. It may feel a lot like getting to the finishing line of a marathon…
But when should you cancel your standing order? How long does it take to get your completion certificate? And when exactly are your debts written off?
This article looks at what happens at the end of an IVA.
Are you sure that is your last payment?
With a simple five or six year IVA, possibly with a further twelve months added instead of a remortgage, you may know exactly when your 60th or 72nd payment is going to be made.
But sometimes it’s less clear:
- there may be some payments outstanding if you had a payment break or extra months were added because of additional income;
- a change of IVA firm won’t by itself change the end date, but admin problems could happen so there is more chance that payments are outstanding;
- if you have a house but your IVA firm hasn’t spoken to you about releasing equity, don’t assume an extra year isn’t needed.
So it’s always worth checking with your IVA firm a couple of months before “the end” that Oct 2018 or whenever really will be your last payment.
A final review by your IVA firm
Your IVA firm will do a final review. Most of the larger firms have a special Closure Team that deals with this. Some firms do the review in the last couple of months, others wait until after your final payment.
It’s a bit like your annual reviews. Some firms ask for bank statements, payslips or a P60. They want to check if you had a lot of overtime, a pay rise, a bonus or some other windfall that you haven’t told them about. If you have, you may have to make some additional payment.
Hopefully after this, the firm will confirm that no more payments are needed and you can cancel that STO or DD.
What if they don’t get in contact?
If you haven’t heard from your IVA firm a couple of weeks week after your last payment, I suggest phoning or emailing them. Ask what you need to provide for the final review. The more you are pro-active at this stage, the quicker this will be over.
If they still don’t talk to you, then send them a weekly email. After a month put in a formal complaint.
If you want to cancel your STO / DD, I suggest you put the money you would have transferred into a separate savings account, don’t spend it. That way if it turns out there is still some money owing, you have it right there.
Your IVA firm closes the IVA
Once the Closure team confirm that you have made all the payments, they will distribute the last money to your creditors.
If you haven’t already agreed to the firm collecting PPI after your IVA has finished, you will probably be asked to sign something. If you don’t, the firm may refuse to close your IVA until they are certain there isn’t any more PPI to come – this could be years.
This may feel unfair but they are allowed to do this. If you want your IVA closed, you are going to have to sign.
This closure procedure used to take 6-8 weeks, but sometimes there can be long delays. If your Completion Certificate hasn’t arrived after three months, I suggest asking every few weeks what is happening and whether you need to provide any more information.
If it gets to five months after your last payment, put in a formal complaint to your IVA firm. At six months put in a complaint to the Insolvency Service about the delay in closing your IVA.
At last you will get your Completion Certificate:
- Your IVA is over. The final dividend has been sent to your creditors and the remainder of your debts are written off.
- Your IVA firm will update the Insolvency Register. Your name stays on the register showing as “completed” for three months, then the entry is deleted.
- The Insolvency Register sends the information that you IVA has completed to the three Credit Reference Agencies. The IVA marker will remain on your credit records until 6 years from the start if your IVA. or uuntil it is completed, whichever is later.
- If you have a house, your IVA firm will remove the restriction placed at the Land Registry so you can sell it.
Check everything has been updated
You should check that all the has worked properly. Leave it a couple of weeks and then look up your details on:
- the Insolvency Register – if this isn’t correct, call your IVA firm and ask them to correct it:
- Experian, Equifax and Call Credit – you do need to check all three. If your IVA still shows as active, send a copy of your Completion Certificate to the credit reference agency and ask them to correct it;
- Land Registry – if the restriction is still showing, call your IVA firm.
After this, wait another month, to give your creditors time to update their records.
Then you can start the process of cleaning up your credit file, see How to improve your credit rating after an IVA for details. This will ensure that your defaulted debts disappear when they should and that you start getting positive ticks each month on your credit records.
The process of improving your credit score is exactly the same if you have settled your IVA early.
So that’s the end. Except…
After that, everything has finished. You shouldn’t hear from your IVA firm again. There are two exceptions here.
One is unusual, and if it happens to you it’s good news – see Why have I been sent a cheque for unclaimed dividends? for details.
The other one is PPI complaints. If your IVA has finished in the last few years, you have probably been asked to agree to your IVA firm collected PPI after the closure. If your IVA finished longer ago, your IVA firm may still claim any PPI refunds you apply for, see PPI after IVAs have finished.
How equity release works in an IVA
How long do IVAs last & how many fail
Debt free – what will you do now?
Amie says
I completed my IVA in Jan 2018. One year ‘cooling off’ period would be over Jan 2019. Now applying for tenancy and it says you have to declare past and present IVAs, is that correct? Are they able to check? I thought the point was to be free of any poor credit history. Any advice welcome.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
That is an unusual question on a tenancy application, but you should answer it honestly.
Amie says
Thank you for replying. I think it’s such an unfair question as it’s been 3 years since the end. I hope it won’t affect my chances :-(
lee says
hi
i currently have 2 payments left on my IVA (64 payments) , last year Creditfix tried to get me and my wife to re mortgage our house through select partnership who were very aggressive in trying to get us to re mortgage with them by calling daily and alluding to us being in breach , although the terms would of turned a debt of 19k over 5 year into around 40k over 15 year , and they wonder why i complained , anyway after a few strongly worded emails they sent me a letter saying i no longer had to re mortgage but had to pay an extra 8 payments .
i want to pay off my last 2 payments in March so i can start getting my rating back up , but reading some of this does not fill me with confidence that it will happen this year, how long from end of March should i expect to see this resolution on my credit rating ?
Weatherman says
Hi Lee
The IVA shouldn’t be marked as ‘active’ after a couple of weeks after the resolution. But if it started less than six years ago, it’ll still show on your credit report (and reduce your credit score) until six years pass from the date it started. This article has some useful tips on how to improve your credit record as much as you can, within that constraint: https://debtcamel.co.uk/repair-credit-record-iva/
Sara (Debt Camel) says
After you have made the last payment there will still need to be a final review before your IVA is completed.
Jim says
My IVA was started April 2015. I made an offer and this was completed after 2.5 years. I understand this will stay on my record for 6 years. (Next month)
One of the debtors continued to show a monthly default on my account until October 2018 when they accepted my settlement.
How long will this stay on my record as I understood everything would be removed after 6 years.
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Sorry I missed this comment.
A debt that is defaulted will drop off your credit record 6 years after the default date. When a debt is included in an IVA, the default date should be on or before the start date of your IVA.
Jova says
Hi, my IVA was paid off early on January 9th. Is there a way that the completion certificate can be sped up? I’m not prepared to wait years, I want to get my life back, I have contacted the IVA company, but they are saying they have six months to complete the closure. They have done all the PPI checks in the first year. I can’t think of any other reason how it can take another three months? I know I’m being impatient, and I got myself in this position in the first case. What is the set time that these companies have to complete the closure of my IVA?
Weatherman says
Hi Jova
Six months is a long time (although sadly not unusual). You can certainly query it with them and if they still refuse, make a complaint – there’s more information here: https://debtcamel.co.uk/iva-completion-certificate/
There’s no guarantee that’ll speed things up, but absolutely no harm in giving them a bit of a kick.
Paul says
My Iva final payment was made in January 2021 after 6 years and I have contact the IVA company to see when the final certificate will be issued, they have come back and said they are awaiting a couple of creditors to make the claim for the funds that I have paid they say they have chased this up with the creditors but have not heard anything back and say that I have to wait until they have been in touch is this correct how long could this go on for before they issue the final certificate as all the IVA company says is that it has to await the creditors response to if or not they are wanting to make a claim, I understand the PPI side and have already signed to say that I am willing to allow them to any future PPI
Sara (Debt Camel) says
I suggest you reply that it is unreasonable that you should be waiting so longer and that you will be making a formal complaint if this gets to 6 months.
Paul says
they have come back with, if we don’t allow them to reply and they issue the completion certificate then the creditors could then re-approach me to chase the debt, is this possible when they have been included on the IVA or is this just the IVA company stalling
Sara (Debt Camel) says
This seems very unusual. i haven’t heard of a problem like this. Can you say who the IVA firm is? And can you ask them who the creditors are?
Paul says
The IVA company is Freeman Jones, and creditors are Santander and New day, all the defaults have been removed from my credit profile but the IVA still shows as active due to the completion certificate not been issued
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Are those large creditors in your IVA?
Paul says
Only Santander this was only £7000 the other was minimal
Sara (Debt Camel) says
Well this seems odd. I suggest you send your IP a complaint saying what you have been told about the delay and saying that failure to make the aware creditor of a claim or of the creditor to submit their claim in 5 years is matter of blame between the individual firms and it should not result in further detriment to you, the client. You can get an email address for your IP from the Insolvency Service register here https://www.insolvencydirect.bis.gov.uk/fip1/