Henry and Sophie Owen found themselves with significant debts following the failure of a business that Henry was involved with. He had borrowed heavily to prop up this business and this left him with around £35,000 of debt including a debt of £15,000 owed to the company’s bank which he had personally guaranteed.
Henry found employment but was made redundant after 12 months and found he had no choice but to try and operate as self employed basis but income was sporadic.
A year later Sophie was forced to leave her employment as childcare arrangements for their children fell through. They both ended up relying on credit cards to get by each month.
Henry and Sophia decided to set up a sandwich business operating from their residential property. They were able to set up a round very quickly. The business proved to be profitable and provided a good, steady income. Unfortunately, due to their financial difficulties prior to this period, they were unable to keep on top of everything and began to fall behind with tax liabilities, credit commitments, as well as their mortgage and secured loan repayments.
It was at this point that Henry and Sophia rang The Business Debt Advisor team for advice on how to deal with their debts of £78,911. Our Business team helped Henry and Sophia prepare cash flow forecasts which showed they could trade their business on a cash positive basis and make a contribution to their debts. Proposals for inter-locking IVA’s were approved which offered to pay creditors 34% of their debt back. This was based on monthly contributions of £540 for 5 years and they were also obliged to investigate if they could refinance their property in the final year to introduce sums into their IVA’s.
APPROVED IVA SOLUTION
During the term of the IVA, Henry and Sophia paid monthly contributions of around £36,000 and in addition they found they were entitled to compensation for mis-sold PPI of £19,000. Creditors agreed that these sums could be treated as payment in full of their debts when it was demonstrated that refinancing was not an option open to them. Creditors actually recovered 71.45% of their debts.