4. File a consumer proposal to unsecured creditors

Your Licensed Insolvency Trustee will help you decide what to offer in your consumer proposal. Your offer can include:

• the amount of money you can repay
• the amount of your monthly payments
• the length of time you will make payments
• any other arrangements

Only a Licensed Insolvency Trustee can file your consumer proposal with your unsecured creditors. An unsecured creditor is a creditor who does not have collateral. Collateral is something that a creditor can take if you do not make your payments. For example, a bank can take your house if you don’t pay your mortgage. Creditors that have collateral are called secured creditors.

For your consumer proposal to be successful, the creditors that you owe more than half of your debts to must agree to the proposal.

If your consumer proposal is successful, that agreement will cover all of your unsecured creditors. This means that even if some unsecured creditors do not agree to accept the consumer proposal, they will still have to follow it.

If you file a consumer proposal, your unsecured creditors will stop contacting you to collect the money you owe. But you have to make your payments on time. You make the payments to your Licensed Insolvency Trustee. Your trustee will keep 20% of your payments to cover their own fees. Then they will pay the rest to your creditors.

While you are making consumer proposal payments, you do not need to make payments on any government student loans. However, interest might still be added to the loans. Your government student loans can’t be included in a consumer proposal unless you have been out of school for more than 7 years.

If you are having trouble making the payments, you may have to sell some of your assets. It is your responsibility to make the payments on time and in full.