What is a company voluntary arrangement, and how is it different from an IVA?
A company voluntary arrangement is a formal agreement between a limited company and its creditors to repay an agreed portion of the company’s debts over time, supervised by an insolvency practitioner, allowing the business to keep trading. It is a corporate procedure under the Insolvency Act, entered into by the company as its own legal entity.
The distinction that matters for your mortgage is the legal person involved. A CVA binds the company; an individual voluntary arrangement binds you personally and appears on your personal credit file for six years. Directors sometimes describe their situation as "being in a CVA", but unless you have personally entered an IVA, your personal insolvency record is untouched.
This is also why information about CVAs and mortgages is scarce: most adverse credit content deals with personal events. Throughout this guide, we mean a director whose company entered a CVA and who is applying for a personal residential mortgage. As ever, we publish information rather than advice, and a case like this is well suited to an FCA-regulated broker used to director income.
Does your company’s CVA appear on your personal credit file?
Not directly. The CVA is registered against the company at Companies House and on the company’s credit profile, not on your personal report at Experian, Equifax or TransUnion. A director whose personal accounts are clean keeps a clean personal file, and automated credit scoring will not see the CVA at all.
There are three common routes by which company trouble does reach a personal file, and they are worth checking before any application. Personal guarantees called in by company creditors become personal debts, and missed payments or defaults on them report personally. Company credit cards or loans taken in your own name rather than the company’s were always personal debts. And directors who propped up the business with personal borrowing may carry heavy balances or missed payments from that period.
Separately, lenders can and do look beyond the credit file. Your directorship is public at Companies House, the CVA is visible there, and application forms commonly ask whether you have been a director of a company that entered an insolvency procedure. Honest disclosure is non-negotiable, because the record is public and discovery after the fact is treated as misrepresentation.
Can a director get a personal mortgage while the company is in a CVA?
Yes, it is possible, and meaningfully easier than applying during a personal insolvency, because the arrangement is not yours. The obstacle is not eligibility but income evidence: if the company in the CVA is also the source of your income, the lender’s question becomes whether that income is sustainable.
During the CVA itself, expect manual underwriting territory. High street lenders relying on automated scoring may pass your personal file but stumble at the income assessment once the company’s position emerges, while lenders with experienced self-employed underwriting will look at the arrangement’s terms, the company’s trading since, and whether the supervisor’s reports show payments being met.
Directors with a second income source, a salaried spouse on the application or income from another company outside the arrangement present much simpler cases, since the CVA company then matters less to affordability.
One director-specific wrinkle deserves attention: an overdrawn director loan account. If the company’s difficulties left you owing the company money, the supervisor may require that repaid as an asset of the arrangement, and a lender seeing the liability in the accounts will ask how it affects your income and your deposit. Clarifying its status with the insolvency practitioner before applying removes an avoidable question mark.
How do lenders assess director income from a company in or after a CVA?
Director applicants are normally assessed on salary plus dividends, or on their share of net profit, evidenced by two or sometimes three years of accounts and tax calculations. A CVA complicates each element: dividends are usually restricted or stopped while the arrangement runs, salaries may have been cut, and historic accounts straddle the period of distress.
Underwriters therefore look for a coherent trajectory. The strongest cases show the cause of the company’s difficulties, the CVA being serviced on schedule, and post-CVA trading that supports the income being declared, ideally with an accountant’s reference confirming the figures and the company’s health.
After the CVA completes, time rebuilds normality. A company that exited its CVA two or three years ago with solid accounts since is a recognisable lending proposition, and the historic arrangement becomes context rather than an obstacle. A completed CVA with strong recovery can read better to a manual underwriter than a quietly struggling company that never restructured.
| Stage | Income evidence picture | Typical lender approach |
|---|---|---|
| CVA active, early | Dividends restricted; accounts show distress | Manual underwriting; strong case needed; other income helps |
| CVA active, payments seasoned | Trading stabilised; supervisor reports clean | Specialist and flexible lenders consider with full disclosure |
| CVA completed, under 2 years | Recovery visible but short | Wider choice; accountant evidence carries weight |
| CVA completed, 2+ years | Normal director income evidence | Approaching standard self-employed criteria at many lenders |
What about personal guarantees and other linked borrowing?
Personal guarantees are the main bridge between company debt and personal liability. A CVA binds the company’s creditors in respect of the company, but it does not extinguish a creditor’s right to pursue your personal guarantee, and some creditors call guarantees precisely because the CVA reduced their recovery.
For mortgage purposes, a called guarantee is a personal debt like any other: lenders will want to know its size, the repayment arrangement and whether it has been kept. A guarantee that was called and then defaulted creates a personal default with the usual six year lifespan, moving you into ordinary adverse credit criteria on top of the director income questions.
Before applying, map your exposure: list every guarantee given, confirm with the supervisor which creditors are inside the CVA, and get the status of any called guarantee documented. Underwriters respond far better to a quantified, managed liability than to one discovered during processing.
How should a director present a mortgage application around a CVA?
These cases are won on preparation and transparency. The goal is to hand the underwriter a complete, evidenced picture before they go looking for one.
Lender appetite in this niche is genuinely varied rather than uniformly cautious, which cuts both ways: the right lender may treat the CVA as routine commercial history, while the wrong one declines on policy. That spread is the strongest argument for research before application.
- Check your personal credit reports at all three agencies and resolve anything the company period left behind
- Disclose the CVA wherever the application asks about directorships or business insolvency, without exception
- Gather two to three years of company accounts, your tax calculations and tax year overviews
- Obtain a letter from your accountant covering the cause of the CVA, current trading and income sustainability
- If the CVA is active, include the supervisor’s latest report showing payments up to date
- Document the status of every personal guarantee connected to the company
- Consider a larger deposit to strengthen the case while company income evidence is rebuilding
- Use an FCA-regulated broker experienced with director income and business insolvency, since lender appetite varies widely and is rarely published
Common questions
Which creditors are bound by a company CVA?
A CVA binds the company’s unsecured creditors once the required majority approves it, including those who voted against. Secured creditors, such as banks holding charges, and certain preferential creditors are only bound if they agree. Importantly, the CVA binds creditors in respect of the company’s debts, not your personal guarantees.
Can I get a mortgage if my company went into liquidation rather than a CVA?
Often yes, since liquidation is also a corporate event that does not appear on your personal credit file unless personal guarantees or personal borrowing went wrong. The bigger challenge after liquidation is evidencing income, because the company has gone, so lenders focus on your new role or venture and its track record.
Does a CVA show at Companies House, and will lenders check?
Yes, the CVA is recorded on the company’s public Companies House file, and your directorship links you to it. Underwriters on director applications routinely review Companies House, and many application forms ask directly about involvement in insolvent companies, so the only safe approach is full disclosure from the start.
Is a mortgage offer issued after the valuation?
Yes, the usual sequence is application, underwriting and valuation, then the formal offer once the lender is satisfied with both you and the property. For directors with a CVA in the background, the underwriting stage is where the company questions arise, so front-loading the evidence shortens the path to offer.
What is the 6 month rule for mortgages?
It is the common lender policy of not lending against a property the seller has owned for less than six months, aimed at rapid resales. It has nothing to do with CVAs, but it occasionally surfaces in director purchases involving properties recently transferred out of companies, where short ownership can limit lender choice.
Will my company’s CVA affect my partner’s mortgage application?
Not through the credit file, since the CVA is a corporate record and creates no personal marker or financial association by itself. It becomes relevant only if your income supports the application, in which case the lender will assess the company as described in this guide, or if joint personal borrowing was affected during the company’s difficulties.
Information Only - Not Financial Advice
This website provides guidance only. Always consult an FCA-regulated mortgage advisor before making decisions.