Hi, I am in full time employment earning around £28k per year, have own home with no equity. Until a month or so ago I had unsecrued debt totalling approx 18K which was very borderline but manageable only just. I had a rocky patch over the last month due to problems with the ex and went on a gambling spree on the credit cards which have increased the unsecured debt to around £27k, which is now beyond control. Also in this amount was a balance transfer from one card to another to release £2k which i then transferred and spent from my current account. I admit I have been terribly reckless and faced with uncertainty. Having spoke with one of the chairty debt helplines they advise an IVA, but my concern would be I am unsure if the credit card companies (2 of them), where the majority of spend has been, would agree to this having been so reckless. Having increased the balances by approx 9K in a month would raise concerns. Any thoughts or anyone with more knowledge of the IVA wold be appreciated...

Hi -

I'm sorry to hear the problems you have had recently and I hope that things improve in the near future - the good thing is you know that you have made a mistake and you want to do something to correct it and also you have to think that the credit card lenders themselves have not exactly acted responsibly letting you increase your debt level by that much in such a short space of time!

I have a very in depth knowledge of IVA's and other financial solutions which may be available to you - how many cards is your debt between and what spread of creditors? The main thing is with an IVA not all your creditors have to agree - just the majority which is a certain percentage. If you like you can private message me as it may be worth having a chat a bit further as I know someone who recently was quoted for an IVA by one of the very well known charities and the fee's totalled more than £4000 more than my insolvency practitioner (who is highly experienced and has an extremely high success rate) which is a massive amount more and also they were trying to get the payment to be quite a bit higher than what he could afford.

PM me if you want to discuss in more detail and I can give you a phone number or email etc.

There may be other options available worth discussing also.

I will you all the best in whatever you choose to do and hope it works out for you.

IVA is debt repayment programme- this is really good for defining a more manageable way to repay your debt, however there are other options such as debt consolidation or even getting advice from an actual advisor. I think you should definitely speak to someone who has knowledge on this subject.

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