Confidential online debt advice you can trust

If you can’t afford your payments and need a debt solution to help you reduce them, your credit file will be affected. However, if you’ve fallen behind with your repayments, this could already be happening. The impact to your credit file will depend on the solution you choose. Some solutions, like bankruptcy or an IVA will show on your credit file for 6 years and will prevent you from getting credit during this time; however, you will also be debt-free and able to rebuild your credit file from a clean slate.

The impact of a debt management plan will depend on how each of your lenders decides to report on your account. The immediate impact may be less severe, but your credit file could be impacted for longer.

The solution that these adverts are trying to sell you is an IVA, but the truth of the matter is that you’re only likely to get 80-90% of your debt written off if you go bankrupt. IVAs are not exclusive to these firms, and you shouldn’t consider entering one until you’ve had advice from an FCA regulated firm which can tell you about all the solutions available to you.

An IVA is a serious commitment and the firms advertising on Google make a lot of money by selling your data onto another firm that will offer you an IVA. Unfortunately, there are high failure rates amongst some providers (failing an IVA means it will be terminated and you’ll often owe as much as you did at the start) because the IVAs being sold aren’t suitable. You can only know for sure that it is suitable if you’ve had FCA regulated debt advice and discussed all solutions.

You should be aware that the level of write off in a solution, if any, will be based on the solution you choose and your individual situation. In an IVA, for example, it would be extremely unlikely for 90% of debt to be written off; 50% would be far more realistic.

Before choosing a debt advisor, check that they are regulated by the financial conduct authority to offer ‘debt counselling’ and ‘debt adjusting’. This means that they can give debt advice and offer debt solutions. If they aren’t regulated, they will only tell you about what they can offer which may not be the best option for you and may cause you further problems further down the line.

If you choose a solution that we can offer, subject to you being able to provide us with the information we need, we can contact your creditors straight away. We can let your creditors know that you’re getting help with your debts and ask for them to stop contacting you.

A debt management plan administered by Angel Advance could be set up in a matter of days (sometimes on the same day you get advice). An individual voluntary arrangement or debt relief order will take a bit longer because there is a formal process to be followed – but we will still request that your creditors stop contacting you while they are being set up.

If you choose a solution we can’t provide, we can let you know how to proceed and give you a copy of the information we’ve collected, and our recommendations, to take with you and speed up any application you make elsewhere.

There may be things that you can do yourself to help with your debt problems, like budgeting for example. But if you’re going to need support in reducing payments and dealing with your creditors, how you do this will depend on a variety of factors such as where you live, the amount and type of debt you have, your assets, and what you do for work.

The most common solutions in England and Wales are Debt Management Plans (DMP’s), Individual Voluntary Arrangements (IVAs) and Debt Relief Orders (DROs). We offer all of these solutions in-house (no need to refer you elsewhere) and you can make your application online. There are similar debt solutions available for Scottish residents – which we also advise on and work with partners to provide.

For more information about debt solutions, click here.