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• Am I to old for an IVA if I am a pensioner
• What if you start drawing a pension during your IVA
• What if your pension payments change

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Am I to old for an IVA if I am a pensioner?

With the availability of credit over the last two decades, there are many people now at retiring age who still need to service unsecured debts. Moving from a working income to a pension could be unsustainable without some kind of debt solution.

An IVA is however not dependent on your age, nor whether you are working or retired. It is based on your income and expenses and the funds you have available to pay your debts.

Most importantly IVA acceptance is based on sustainability. Provided your income is regular and guaranteed there is no reason why you could not apply for an IVA whilst you are retired.

It is about whether you can afford to pay, not your age. You will need a regular income which may be the state pension and a private pension if you have one.

What if you start drawing a pension during your IVA

It is important to understand that an IVA is a deal between you and your creditors. If you pay as much as you can reasonably afford over a fixed term, they will then write off the remaining unaffordable debt.

You may have an additional private pension that you have not started to draw at the time you begin your IVA. If you choose to start drawing this pension you will have additional disposable income. As such you may be expected to pay more into your IVA.

Your IVA cannot force you to start drawing funds or release lump sums from a pension. You choose when you want to do this.

What if your pension payments change?

If you experience any changes to either your income or expenses, you must contact your IVA company straight away. They will recalculate your budget and confirm whether your IVA payments need to change.

If your pension payments go up and everything else stays the same, it is likely your IVA payments would increase. However if you have increased reasonable expenses then this may cancel out the extra income.

Your budget is reviewed every year at the IVA Annual Review. In some cases it might be that the existing payment is no longer affordable. In such cases your IP may apply to vary the IVA, so that the IVA payments could be reduced.

Don’t delay informing your IVA company of changes. If you do, you might find that you have to make additional payments back dated to the time of the change. This might put your IVA at risk of failing.