It’s been a long time coming…
Anyone who knows me well knows how I hate IVAs with a passion, how I think they are an abused process, how I think IVA providers have dragged the reputation of the insolvency profession into the gutter by sending people down an inappropriate route, where alternative solutions should have been advised.
In the last twenty years, I have advised just one debtor to go down the IVA route… One… In twenty years… And he was a lawyer, an IVA saved his career… He had a valid reason to go into IVA, unlike the vast majority of people who go into IVA – Schedule E employees with no job or career or assets to protect.
So what’s happened?
The Advertising Standards Agency has ruled on 2 companies, who were what I call ‘IVA lead finders’, finding that their advertising was misleading. Click here and here
Like all IPs, today, I received a missive from the Insolvency Service, reminding me and my regulatory body about ‘my duties’ and giving examples of unacceptable advertising. Why on earth should an experienced professional need such a reminder?
I’ll answer that… the personal insolvency end of the market is the horrible, messy, end of the profession which has for far too long (35 years) been neglected by the regulators and Insolvency Service.
Let’s remember that these professionals meet desperate people who don’t understand the complexities of insolvency law and as a consequence are easily led down the wrong route – with no ability to reverse it. There is an obligation on IPs to give best advice, and frankly, they haven’t done so, they have looked at the profits only.
It’s only taken 35 years for the ASA and Insolvency Profession in terms of its regulators to wake up. Far, far more needs doing, this is only the first step in a long awaited clean up.
By the way, I don’t conduct IVAs, or indeed personal insolvency work. Nor ever will.
Paul