The final say about whether the IVA is approved comes down to the creditors, the people who are owed the money in the first place. You can try to influence them through the proposal but it is their decision when all is said and done.

To be approved, seventy five percent of the creditors must agree to the proposal. The voting percentage is pro rata to the amount of debt owed to each creditor. This means if you owe your credit card company the sum of twenty thousand pounds but you owe a store card the sum of a thousand pounds, the credit card company would have the majority voting right.

Since only seventy five percent of the voting creditors have to agree, it doesn't matter if they do not all agree to the IVA. Legally, if the IVA proposal is made to the creditors listed amongst its documents, then they are included whether they like it or not. If they do not attend the meeting or refuse to communicate or vote, then they are included in the decision by the majority automatically. There is nothing that they can do about it and they cannot appeal or reject the decision of the majority. For this reason, it favours the debtor if they can make a compelling case for the majority creditors to approve the proposal.

If the majority rejects the proposal, then the Insolvency Practitioner and the debtor can make modifications to the original proposal. The creditors may not agree with the statement of the debtor's affairs and believe that they can squeeze more money out of their income than is represented by the statement. If you cannot afford to pay more, you may need to accept the decision of the creditors and look for an alternative action to the Individual Voluntary Arrangement, and that may be either an informal agreement, debt management, debt consolidation or the most severe step: bankruptcy.