IVA Review: Paul 1969 on ClearDebt (775 views)

< Prev

> Next

Review of: ClearDebt

Review date: 18 January 2011

Insolvency Practitioner who handled case: David Mond

I proceeded as far along as: Accepted IVA

The solution I opted for in the end: IVA

Speed of response

No of days to make a decision after I spoke to IVA company: 4 days

Weeks to IVA proposal after decision made: 2 weeks

Weeks to IVA accepted/rejected after decision made: 6 weeks


IVA Company Ratings
Their debt solutions expertise:	9 out of 10
Their customer service:	10 out of 10
Their speed of response:	10 out of 10
Overall Company Rating:	10 out of 10

Insolvency Practitioner Ratings
The quality of IVA proposal:	10 out of 10
Overall Insolvency Practitioner Rating:	10 out of 10

My circumstances:

My wife and I are 35 and 41 years old respectively with combined debt of £65k. We both had IVAs agreed although we consider them to run as one as our finances are so closely tied. We ahve a mortgaged property with now approx £25k equity which is rapidly reducing!

My interaction with the company:

Our experience with ClearDebt has been very good with the exception of a bumpy start due to the fact that our IVA was taken over by them from another company after itself became insolvent and ClearDebt are actually the third company to handle our IVAs as the original one, David & Co also went down the pan. The original information from David & Co seemed to be very good in as much as they achieved our IVA agreements, however, both they and Synergi (the second company) both gave me very misleading hope and confidence, especially when we had our first child...and then our second...and when I was made redundant!I was told all the way along by them that I "needn;t worry, itll all be ok"....it actually wasnt ok at all, not until ClearDebt got involved.

Why I gave the ratings I did:

ClearDebt received a high score from me mainly because of the extremely hard work made by Adrienne, my main contact for the Supervisor. After initially telling me that my best course was to go bankrupt, she eventually gave way to my pleading to re-approach my creditors with a revised proposal. She worked tirelessly on our behalf to protect our home from being sold and extend our payments, albeit at a slightly higher rate than before, for another 12 months. She has been honest and frank with us and hasnt given us hope or confidence in order to keep us happy....she gave real solutions and made our future a whole lot brighter....THAT GOOD!

One thing they did - which really impressed me:

Patience with us and listened to our increasing problems near the end of our IVA. Fought our corner impressively and made us feel that we really had an ally in our fight to keep our home.

One thing they did - which I felt could be improved:

In my experience nothing more could have been done. As youve read, ClearDebt werent our initial company and if I had any complaint it was that they were very black and white at the start, telling me in no uncertain terms that we should declare ourselves bankrupt and fail the IVA. It wasnt until we had a little more familiarity with each other that we came to a more balanced understanding of our situation, especially as we had been let down so badly by previous practitioners.

Other points

We now have 10 more months left of our agreement, it will make it 6 years in total since the IVA was agreed and we are currently paying £150 per month each into our respective agreements, up from the original £100 each. The original dividend should have made the creditors 26p in the £ had we been able to re-mortgage our home for £15k, which we simply werent able to do, as I had recently been made redundant. We no longer need to re-mortgage and were instructed to pay the extra 12 months instead. Our revised dividend will be approx 2p in the £ after all supervisor costs have been taken into account, even though ClearDebt even agreed to waiver their costs in the final year in order to get our revision accepted! We will have written off the better part of £50k at the end of our agreements. I am in no way proud of this and the last 5 years have been a struggle to say the least. When we were at our highest spending we were both working full time earning approx £45k per year. Since then we have had 2 children, both of us dropped from full time to part time in order to look after them until I was eventually made redundant. Our joint income is now, and has been for some years about £20k. <br> <br> My advice to anyone reading this is to be honest with yourself first, to understand just how deep in you are and what you may need to sacrifice to resolve it. IT WONT GO AWAY, ITLL ONLY GET WORSE. You MUST be totally honest with your practitioner as they are your best friend throughout this whole business. Your phone wont ring with final demands and threats from your creditors once your proposal is agreed, this in itself is worth its weight in gold. Youll be presented with a complete time-line and can see for yourselves how far away the end is and my story is proof that even if your situation changes for the worse there is always an alternative to losing it all. My wife and I have been very lucky I must admit, but its been a rocky road and at times we thought all was lost, but its genuinely thanks to ClearDebt, Adrienne in particular, that we will come out relatively unscathed.

How informative was this review?
Not useful	Bit vague	ok	Informative	Very Informative

How genuine does this review look?
This is Spam	Doubtful	Don't know	Probably Genuine	Definitely Genuine

Review from Paul 1969 (775 views)

Community Comments of this review

Rate this review

Submit a review

Reviewer quotes

Search for IP/IVA Firm

Last 10 Reviews

Last 5 comments(for Reviews)

Best Reviews

Popular Reviews

Insolvency Advice Articles

Reviews on IVA.com

Search:
(search is fuzzy - part of name is fine)