An Individual Voluntary Arrangement (IVA) is a formal debt solution supervised by a licensed insolvency practitioner. It allows you to make affordable monthly payments towards your debts over a fixed period — typically five or six years — after which any remaining debt included in the arrangement is written off.
An IVA is recorded on the Insolvency Register and appears on your credit file for six years from the date it was approved. During the IVA, you are usually restricted from taking on new credit without permission from your insolvency practitioner, which includes mortgages.
Once your IVA has been completed or the six-year mark on your credit file has passed, obtaining a mortgage becomes more realistic. Some specialist lenders will consider applicants who are still within an active IVA, but this is rare and the terms are typically expensive. Most adverse-credit mortgage applicants with an IVA history wait until it is completed and ideally until the credit file entry has dropped off.
A mortgage broker who specialises in adverse credit can advise on timing and identify lenders whose criteria accommodate IVA history.
Emma entered an IVA in 2020 to manage £32,000 of unsecured debt. She made monthly payments of £280 for five years and the remaining balance was written off when the IVA completed in 2025. In 2026 she applies for a mortgage with a 20% deposit. Her broker finds a specialist lender offering a two-year fix at 5.9%. After two years of clean credit history post-IVA, Emma plans to remortgage onto a lower rate.
Key Points
- An IVA is a formal insolvency solution supervised by a licensed insolvency practitioner
- It typically lasts five to six years, after which remaining included debts are written off
- The IVA appears on your credit report for six years from the approval date
- Specialist lenders may consider mortgage applications after an IVA is completed
- A larger deposit (typically 15%–25%) is usually needed to offset the credit risk