C G, Devon

I run a small group of shops - we had many problems. Possibly the main problem was that we did not get good advice from the outset. Our accountant was a nice man but really anything more than calculating tax was beyond him. Cheryl from ias was the first person we met. She made us feel at ease and also made us aware just how important it was to have someone working for us as opposed to the creditors she also highlighted our areas of weakness, there were many that we were not aware of so did not put measures in place to protect them.

After taking advice; the first thing we did was undo the many things that we had done over the last couple of months. This was us trying to protect assets - we could have got into a lot of trouble. With their support we went to all of our creditors with a good open and honest plan. Eventually we got 94% support, 6% was against the proposal this being my ex-wife. She had to toe the line even though she did not want too, the law made her; for once the law with the help of ias was on my side this in itself gave me some pleasure!

We are now paying our debts off - we were given 3 years and pay an affordable monthly amount. We only pay 48% i.e. 48 pence in the pound. This means that the £200,000 we owed we only have to pay £96,000 back without any interest. This is far more than the creditors would have seen if both my wife and I were to have been made bankrupt so it's good for us all. Cheryl and Andrew with Mike's guidance have also shown me how to protect our assets in the future and build towards our retirement through trusts impenetrable by bankruptcy etc. We now can sleep at night.