What Happens At The End Of My IVA?

So you’ve finally reached the end of your IVA. After five or six years of making payments, your debt is cleared and you can start moving on with the rest of your life.

But what happens now? Do you need to do anything further?

Most IVAs last for either five or six years, the extra year normally being if you are a homeowner and were not initially able to remortgage, meaning that this had to be delayed and thus the term of your IVA had to be extended.

So when you think that you are coming up to the end of your IVA, it is worth contacting your insolvency practitioner or the company who administers your IVA to check exactly where you are up to. Five years is a long time and you may have lost track of exactly how much you have left to pay. Your insolvency practitioner will be able to tell you exactly how many payments that you have remaining.

When your IVA has officially finished, your insolvency practitioner will get in contact with you and conduct a final review. This basically just lets you know how much you have paid, to whom and confirms that any outstanding debts have been cleared. They will also check if you owe any extra payments into your IVA, for example if you have had any additional earnings such as from a bonus or overtime etc, then you may be required to pay this into your IVA.

Once your IVA has officially ended, your insolvency practitioner will send out your IVA Completion Certificate. Don’t worry if this takes a few months to arrive.

The only thing left for you to do now is to put your debt problems behind you and start rebuilding your credit score. You can take steps such as:

• Checking that your details no longer feature on the Insolvency Register – again this can take a few months to be processed so you may have to be patient.
• Check your credit score – it is worth doing this with all three credit reference agencies in the UK; Experian or Equifax. Don’t worry if your IVA still shows up even after you have finished making payments, as an IVA will stay on your record for six years from the start date of your IVA, even if it has finished after five.
• Shore up your credit rating – simple steps such as making sure that you are registered on the electoral roll and paying all of your bills on time, will help you to start improving your score.

If at any point you are unsure about anything to do with your IVA, contact Northern Ireland Debt Solutions where our friendly advisors are happy to take the time to talk through your position and all of your options.