Controversial commentator Katie Hopkins, who once said poor people in debt have no one else to blame but themselves, has applied for an insolvency agreement in a bid to avoid bankruptcy following a costly libel case involving the food writer Jack Monroe.

Last year, the rightwing broadcaster was ordered to pay hundreds of thousands of pounds in damages and legal costs after she sent tweets in 2015 which falsely implied Monroe backed the defacement of war memorials by protesters.

Monroe originally asked for Hopkins to apologise and donate £5,000 to a migrants’ charity or she would sue. But Hopkins – who had confused Monroe with the columnist Laurie Penny – refused to back down, resulting in a costly court case, with the commentator forced to pay £24,000 in damages and a substantially larger sum in legal costs.

Meanwhile, her mainstream media career collapsed. She parted ways with Mail Online, for whom she had written a regular column, in late 2017, only a few months after losing her LBC radio show when she called for a “final solution” in response to the Manchester Arena terrorist attack. She now works for the far-right Canadian outlet Rebel Media.

Hopkins, who has already had to sell her Devon home, applied for an individual voluntary arrangement (IVA) in May, a filing on the Individual Insolvency Register shows. Monroe told the Guardian that the agreement, which will allow Hopkins to avoid bankruptcy and manage the long-term repayment of her debts, was recently formally agreed following discussion with creditors.

Q&A What is an IVA? Show Hide An individual voluntary arrangement (IVA) is a formal and legally binding agreement with creditors to pay back debts, often over five or six years. More than 75% of the individual's creditors must agree to the IVA, which is then supervised by a licensed insolvency practitioner. According to Citizens Advice, practitioners typically charge fees of around £5,000 . Agreed monthly repayments are paid to the insolvency practitioner, who will deal with the creditors for the lifetime of the IVA. If the payments into the IVA are not enough to repay the debts in full, the rest will be written off. Last year there were 59,220 new IVAs in England and Wales. An IVA is a form of insolvency. It differs from bankruptcy, where assets are transferred to a trustee, who then sells them and distributes the proceeds to creditors. When the bankruptcy order is over you can make a fresh start, usually after a year. Those who declare bankruptcy are allowed to keep certain things, like household goods and a reasonable amount to live on.

Hopkins, whose tweets suggested she is on a trip to Poland, did not immediately return a request for comment.

“It’s really quite sad – two tweets cost her her house, job, and now her credit rating,” said Monroe, reflecting on the case, which has taken more than three years in total.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest The food writer Jack Monroe. Photograph: Graeme Robertson/The Guardian

“I’m supposed to be jubilant and celebratory but I feel quite mixed up. Having been close to the edge of bankruptcy myself, it’s a hideous situation to be in, but it was completely avoidable. Things are in place in that agreement to make sure her children are looked after. I’m a mother myself and I read it line by line to make sure that her children didn’t suffer as a result of what she’s done.”

Hopkins shot to fame as a contestant on The Apprentice in 2007, later billing herself as “Britain’s most controversial columnist” and appearing on the US TV network Fox News, during which time then-presidential candidate Donald Trump called her a “respected columnist” for her writing on “the UK’s Muslim problems”.

I took Katie Hopkins to court – but I won’t celebrate her leaving Mail Online | Jack Monroe Read more

Earlier this year, she successfully won a complaint against the Daily Mirror after its website gave the impression that she was prevented from leaving South Africa for taking ketamine. She said the claim could be damaging to her reputation as, in reality, her passport had been briefly confiscated over allegations she had been spreading racial hatred, rather than for using medically-prescribed drugs.

After Monroe revealed the existence of the IVA, social media users drew attention to a tweet Hopkins published in 2014 suggesting that people in debt typically blamed others for their predicament.

Katie Hopkins (@KTHopkins) The only thing people in debt have in common other than bad money management, is an ability to blame anyone but themselves. #debtdebate

Monroe warned that Hopkins could be turned into a martyr and pushed further to the extremes by the verdict. “She could have had a glittering career ahead of her,” she said.

“I hope this is an opportunity to regroup and reconsider how best to provide for her family without ending up in court or being pushed further to the margins. I don’t know if it’s a fire that’s burning out or a fire that we’re pouring petrol on.

“My offer of a cup of tea still stands if she wants to talk about it. I don’t believe that anyone’s so far beyond redemption. Lots of people are celebrating but I’m not.

“I have to talk about it because if I don’t people will speculate on what I think. It’s a sad, lonely sort of anticlimax. It’s really crap and I feel really bad it’s all ended up like this. I thought she’d just say sorry.”