IVAs are seen as a "soft option"
Published On 15 August 2007
Many people in the UK are opting for an IVA over bankruptcy because it is seen as a "soft option" when sorting out debt.That's the opinion of an industry expert, who explained that there were a number of other ways people could approach their debt problem.
Ian Boden-Smyth, a spokesperson for the UK Insolvency Helpline, said that sorting out a sensible budget was the first and most important thing for someone in a debt crisis to do.
He added: "We always say, 'sit down, write down your income, take away your living costs, and see if you've actually got any spare income'.
"An IVA is obviously a soft option to bankruptcy, but we are seeing a lot of IVAs. There's a steady number - a couple of hundred a month."
Indeed, figures from the Insolvency Service show that 10,698 IVAs were taken out in the second quarter of 2007.
A separate study from the government body revealed that the public's attitude to bankruptcy was shifting - with people attaching less stigma to debt than they had in the past.
