Can you get a joint IVA?

If you and your partner both need an IVA, you will each have your own, normally proposed at the same time, often by the same insolvency practitioner, and built on one shared household budget. These are called interlocking IVAs. The old idea of a single “joint IVA” covering two people does not exist in the Insolvency Act 1986.

IVAs are available in England, Wales and Northern Ireland. Scotland has no IVAs: see debt solutions in Scotland.

What is an interlocking IVA?

An interlocking IVA is really two individual IVAs designed to work together. Each person has:

• their own proposal, listing their own debts, including their share of any joint debts
• their own creditors, who vote on that proposal
• their own monthly contribution, fees and terms
• their own entry on the Individual Insolvency Register and their own credit file record

What links them is the budget. The IVA Protocol 2025, which sets the standard terms for most consumer IVAs, says the budget should reflect the income and spending of the whole household where appropriate, using the Standard Financial Statement. If a budget is agreed for only one person in a household, the proposal has to explain why. In practice, a couple’s rent, food and bills are worked out once and then shared between the two proposals.

If you want the basics of how any IVA runs, see how an IVA works.

What happens to joint debts?

This is the part people most often get wrong. If you owe money jointly, each of you is responsible for the whole debt, not just half of it.

Citizens Advice explains that an IVA can only cover one person, so the other person will still be responsible for the whole of the debt. The key facts document you receive before signing a protocol IVA says the same: creditors can still pursue the other person for payment of a joint debt. The standard terms also say an IVA does not affect a creditor’s rights against anyone else who owes the same debt.

For example, say you and your partner have a joint loan with £6,000 left to pay, and only you enter an IVA. Your IVA deals with your liability, but the lender can ask your partner to pay the full £6,000. If your IVA completes and the rest of your share is written off, your partner can still be chased for what is left.

That is why couples with a lot of joint debt often look at interlocking IVAs: if both of you are in an IVA, the joint debt is dealt with in both, so neither of you is left to face the whole balance outside an IVA.

What happens to a home you own together?

Under the IVA Protocol 2025, which applies to protocol IVAs approved from 1 July 2025, you will not be asked to sell your home or release equity. Instead, the length of each IVA depends on each person’s own share of the equity.

Equity is worked out as 85% of the property’s value minus the mortgage and any other secured borrowing. With interlocking IVAs, each person’s share is assessed separately, and the £10,000 threshold applies to each person individually. Under £10,000, the IVA runs for 60 months; £10,000 or more, 72 months.

Here is a hypothetical example. A couple own a home worth £180,000 in equal shares, with a £140,000 mortgage.

If one person owned the same home alone, their interest would be £13,000 and their IVA would run for 72 months. IVAs agreed before 1 July 2025 under the older 2021 Protocol had different home rules, including an attempt to remortgage in the later years. For more, see your home and belongings in an IVA.

What if one IVA is rejected, or fails later?

Because each IVA is a separate legal arrangement, each proposal is voted on by that person’s own creditors. In principle, one can be approved while the other is not. A creditor you owe jointly is a creditor of both of you, so it can vote on both proposals.

The same applies later. If one of you breaks the terms and that IVA is terminated, that person’s creditors can chase them again for the full balances, including interest and charges frozen during the IVA. The other IVA does not automatically end, but the household budget it was built on may no longer work.

Before you sign, ask the insolvency practitioner:

• how the two proposals depend on each other
• what happens to one IVA if the other is rejected or fails
• whether fees are charged separately on each IVA, and how much in total

What happens if you separate during your IVAs?

Separation does not end either IVA, but it nearly always changes the numbers. Two homes cost more than one, and the shared budget stops making sense.

Tell your supervisor as soon as you can. The standard terms give them some room to help without going back to creditors:

• payment breaks of no more than 9 months’ worth (39 weeks) in total across the IVA, with the term extended by no more than 12 months to make them up
• a cut in your regular payment of no more than 20% in total

A bigger reduction needs creditors to agree a formal change to your IVA. If the new budget cannot support any sensible payment, the IVA may end, and you should look at other options with an adviser. See what happens if an IVA fails.

Are interlocking IVAs a good idea?

They suit some couples and not others. The honest trade-offs:

It is also worth checking whether an IVA is the right tool for each of you at all. The Protocol says someone who meets the criteria for a debt relief order is unlikely to be suitable for a protocol IVA, and one partner may meet them while the other does not. The debt solutions comparison sets out the main options side by side.

What to do next

1. List every debt and mark which are joint, which are in your name and which are in your partner’s.
2. Read the costs of an IVA and remember that two IVAs means two sets of fees.
3. Talk it through with a free, impartial adviser at MoneyHelper, StepChange, Citizens Advice or National Debtline, who can look at both of your situations. See where to get free debt advice.
4. For other IVA topics, go back to IVAs explained.