Running a business can be unpredictable; if you find yourself struggling to make a repayment, we’re here to help. The most important thing to do is get in touch; talk to your Account Manager or to Collections, email payments@iwoca.co.uk or call us on 020 3778 0274.
After all, everyone’s different. You might just need a few extra days while you’re waiting for an invoice payment. Or you might be facing tougher circumstances, like insolvency.
So whatever your situation, we’re keen to talk to you as early as possible, and find the right solution for you. This article explains some of the options available (and also describes the processes we follow if we don’t hear from you or can’t reach you.)
We understand that every business faces unique financial challenges. Our goal is to work with you to find a manageable solution.
The first thing we’ll want to do is to understand your specific circumstances. We might ask you for some supporting information such as bank statements, invoices, cash flow forecasts etc. We might also ask you to link open banking. This is to enable us to fully understand your situation and tailor our approach to your needs.
After reviewing your circumstances, we may be able to offer one of the following options:
A little more time to pay: If you need a few extra days or weeks to make your payment, we can discuss whether we can offer a short-term deferral of your payment.
Adjusting Your Payment Date: Sometimes, the current payment date doesn't align with your cash flow. We can work with you to find a more suitable date.
Temporarily lower payments: If meeting the full payment amount is difficult, we can explore a temporary reduction.
Just so you're aware, these options usually involve paying more interest overall because the loan is paid back over a longer time. We'll be sure to explain all the costs clearly during our call so you have all the information you need.
It’s important that we discuss your situation with you as soon as possible. If you leave it too long without getting in touch or repaying, or your account reaches 30 days overdue, then your credit file might show that you’ve officially gone overdue on your loan, and this could affect your ability to borrow in the future.
If you don’t bring your account up to date, or we can’t reach an agreement, we might need to ‘terminate’ your loan.
This means we officially end our loan agreement with you and request the full balance be repaid immediately. It’ll show on your credit file as a default, and could affect your ability to borrow from any lender in the future. We never take this decision lightly, and we’ll always notify you and any guarantors at least a week before we terminate. Even at this point, it might not be too late to reach an agreement if you make contact with us. We’ll make our intentions clear to you during any contact or written communication. In the event of any insolvency, we would terminate any loan agreement we have with you.
Once we’ve terminated the loan agreement, we’ll be in touch with any guarantors directly to talk through the options. And if your financial problems are significant, then we might suggest you get debt advice – organisations like Step Change or Citizens Advice Bureau or BusinessDebt Line can help.
Once the loan agreement is terminated and as a last resort, we might take legal steps
Depending on how much your business owes and what kind of personal guarantee there is, we might take legal steps after we terminate. If we do, we’ll raise a claim in the County Court and look to obtain a Judgment against the business and/or the guarantors. Once we have judgment, we might ask High Court Enforcement Officers to attend the business or home, to speak in person about the debt. Or we might ask the court for a charging order on a property so we can recover our debt from a sale or remortgage. Of course, we’ll keep you fully informed about our intentions; this isn’t our desired course of action, and we’d sooner reach a solution much earlier in the process. If we do take legal steps, then you should seek independent legal advice. And throughout the process, we’ll stay in touch with you (or your solicitor) so you know the steps we plan to take before we take them.
Of course, some individual circumstances call for extra breathing room
If you have medical issues or special circumstances which might affect your ability to pay, we should be able to give you some extra space. So it’s really important to make us aware of these issues: we’ll always keep this information confidential, unless you explicitly tell us we can share it.
We might also ask you for some paperwork to prove your situation, like medical certificates. Please don’t be offended by this, it’s just to help us properly understand your circumstances. We can freeze interest for a few days while you get these documents to us – once we have them, we can make a full assessment of how we can help you over the longer term.
All in all, we want to support you as much as we can.
We know money worries can be extremely stressful, so we’re here to help if you need us. Please do get in touch as soon as possible; talk to your account manager or collections, email payments@iwoca.co.uk or call us on 020 3778 0274.