If you go into an Individual Voluntary Arrangement, the Insolvency Practitioner running your IVA scheme takes his fees from the first set of payments you make. But if you are one of the one in five who fails to keep their payments up, you will find yourself with a bill from your Insolvency Practitioner for the balance of the fees you owe.

IVA’s run for five years during which time, the person in the IVA pays off the reduced debts which were negotiated for them by the Insolvency Practitioner and within this sum the Practitioner includes his fees. This frequently means that the creditors have to write off 60% of the money owed to them.

But if the IVA collapses because the creditor fails to maintain the agreed payments, what happens next? Well, in practice, the only solution is a full bankruptcy. If that happens, the bill from the Insolvency Practitioner gets added to all the other unsecured creditors – in other words, he’s likely to get very little - or nothing!