Which are the best IVA firms to talk to if you are interested in an Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA) and whether it is a good debt solution for you? If you put IVA into Google, how do you decide which of the tempting see how much of your debt you can write off links to click on? Or you could choose the person that cold calls/texts you telling you about a little-known government … [Read more...]
Insolvency News & Policy articles
Here are all the Debt Camel articles about what is new and changing in bankruptcy, DROs and IVAs. They cover everything from news about IVA firms to statistics and regulatory changes from the Insolvency Service. These articles are mainly of interest to debt specialists.
If you want practical advice on choosing between the different insolvency options, or about what happens when you have gone bankrupt or are in a DRO or IVA look at the following:
Major changes for thousands of customers with Aperture & Vanguard IVAs
In Autumn 2020 two of the largest IVA firms have recently announced the latest in a long line of customer transfers within the industry: all Aperture's open IVAs have been sold to Jarvis Insolvency; and Vanguard's open IVAs will be administered by Ebenegate. UPDATE: In February 2021 Jarvis rebranded and it now calls itself Debt Movement. Sale of Aperture's IVAs to Jarvis On 5 … [Read more...]
Holding Money & Debt up to the Light: Transparency and the Standard Financial Statement
This is a guest post by Dr Joseph Spooner, Assistant Professor of Insolvency Law at the LSE and the author of Bankruptcy – the Case for Relief in an Economy of Debt. He had previously worked at the Law Reform Commission of Ireland, where his papers influenced the enactment of the Irish Personal Insolvency Act 2012. Systems for addressing difficulties of over-indebted households in England … [Read more...]
IVAs in 2018 – numbers jump and so do failure rates
On 29 January 2019 the Insolvency Service published two sets of statistics for 2018: Insolvency Statistics: October to December 2018 Individual Voluntary Arrangements: Outcome Status 1990 – 2017. Here are what I think are the three most interesting points. 1. IVA numbers again rose faster than bankruptcy & DROs In 2018 IVAs increased by 20%. Already the most common type of … [Read more...]
Making bankruptcy look more scary than it is
It's natural to feel worried about bankruptcy, but some websites set out to make it sound a lot worse than it is. Some of what they say is simply wrong. Other bits may be right but they leave out important facts, so the issue sounds more difficult than it is in practice. And it's common for problems associated with bankruptcy to be listed in detail, but very similar points … [Read more...]
IP regulation – Insolvency Service find major problems
The Review of the monitoring and regulation of insolvency practitioners that was published by the Insolvency Service last week found evidence of many of the problems in Individual Voluntary Agreements (IVAs) that I and other free-sector debt advisers have been talking about for several years. Although it is often not specific about what has to be done, the report is clear that change has to … [Read more...]
2017 Insolvency Statistics – the real story
On 26 January 2018 the Insolvency Service published two sets of statistics: Individual Voluntary Arrangements: Outcome Status 1990 – 2016 Insolvency Statistics: October to December 2017 Predictably the news stories about this lead on the statistic that personal insolvency went up: The number of people who became insolvent jumped by 9.4% in 2017 - the second year running that … [Read more...]
Too broke to go bankrupt – why bankruptcy fees should be cut
This article looks at the public policy implications of the current high bankruptcy fees in England, Wales and Northern Ireland: £680 (£659 in Northern Ireland) is a big obstacle to fairness at the moment, causing people stress and sometimes leading them to make poor choices between debt solutions. If you want to go bankrupt and can't afford the fees, this is not the right article for you. … [Read more...]
Knightsbridge IVAs – must you agree to Creditfix’s variation?
15,000 people are being asked by Creditfix to agree to a variation that will increase the fees Creditfix gets from 15% to 23%. These are the Knightsbridge customers whose IVAs have recently been sold to Creditfix, If you have had one of these emails, do you have to agree? What are the pros and cons? IVA fees do matter Creditfix has said in the email about the proposed variation: The … [Read more...]
PPI claims after your IVA has finished
In March 2017, the Court of Appeal decision in the Green v Wright case was published: Mr Wright's IVA firm was allowed to collect PPI after his IVA ended, even though he hadn't consented to this before his completion certificate was issued. As questions about this continue to arrive, I thought it would be useful to summarise the current situation: what is clear and what is less clear. The … [Read more...]