Often in life we reach a point at some stage where we find it difficult to manage our life in a financially prudent fashion and we find ourselves in debt, Sometimes it’s more debt than we can afford and there is stress related to having financial difficulties and quite often, we do not see the way to getting ourselves back on an even keel. Thousands of people find themselves in this position every year and often cannot see a way to becoming debt free again.
Debt Help is Here!
There are a number of ways to go about changing this and getting debt free.
Here is a brief overview of some of the debt solutions citizens of Scotland can use to become debt free:
Debt Management Scheme
A debt management scheme is an informal agreement to pay your debt to your creditors over a longer period of time. However, there are both pros and cons to this as there is with everything.
Pros:
Your creditor will usually agree to freeze interest and charges, but this is at the discretion of your creditor.
Cons:
Because the agreement is of an informal nature, you creditors can change the goalposts by way of not wanting to continue accepting your payments you initially were paying. Unusually, as long as your circumstances don’t change, they will continue with the agreement.
There is no type of protection and your creditors can still move to seize your assets, including your home.
Can take a very long time depending on the size and type of debt it is. (We have confirmed reports of people being on these schemes for up to 6 years)
Debt Arrangement Scheme
Introduced by the Scottish government, the DAS was meant to provide people with 2 or more creditors, debt help managing their financial crisis without going to court. As long as you make a single regular payment to an approved distributer. There are currently 3 approved distributors who can set up a DAS for you in Scotland. The DAS must be set up through one of these 3 money advisors and cannot be set up by you yourself.
The money advisor will complete an income and expenditure form with you and section debts in to priority debts and non priority debts. The will then send each of your creditors a copy of your income and expenditure report and negotiate with each of your creditors. If a creditor responds, or not respond to this, then they are deemed to have accepted the proposed terms then the debt payment though DAS is automatically agreed.
Pros:
The payment plan is reviewed every 6 months.
DAS allows you to back what you owe your creditors without any pressure.
Charges and interest are frozen
Protected under the DAS from your creditors taking any further action against you.
At the end of the agreed repayment term, you should be able to have a clean slate.
Cons:
There is a monthly management fee charged by approved money advisors for setting up and managing the DAS
Your home is still at risk
Sequestration
Sequestration is the Scottish term for bankruptcy and start from the date where in court, you are declared bankrupt by the sheriff. This really should be considered the last resort. You do have to hand over all of your assets and property to a trustee who will try to sell them for the cost of managing the sequestration and to pay back as much as possible of the money you owe to your creditors. You will be required to make a contribution from your salary toward the payments and it will be recorded in the Edinburgh Gazette.
Pros:
You can try to make a fresh start after 3 years (although once a sequestration has been recorded, realistically, you will not be offered credit by any of the major lenders)
Cons:
Adversely affects you credit rating.
You could lose your home.
If you do not declare any of your debts to the trustee, you can be criminally prosecuted.
You must disclose your bankruptcy to any subsequent attempts to borrow more than £250 or you can face criminal prosecution.
Can continue for more than 3 years
Scottish Trust Deed
A trust deed is sometimes referred to as a Scottish trust Deed and is backed by Scottish government legislation and is a formal and legally binding agreement that transfers part or all of your money and property to a trustee (who must be a registered insolvency practitioner), to manage for the benefit of the creditors.
In a Scottish Trust Deed, a sum from your income will be requested, just as the 2 examples above, and is a private arrangement between you and your creditors. You must transfer all assets that you would have lost under sequestration (bankruptcy), to your trustee. You must agree to cooperate with the trustee. To become a protected trust deed, certain criteria must be met. It must be advertised in the Edinburgh Gazette (the official record for recording trust deeds, insolvencies and sequestrations as well as many other things). A trust deed is binding on all creditors.
Pros:
Once a trust deed becomes a protected trust deed, your creditors cannot take any further action against you.
Your creditors are bound not to contact you and all contact will be to the trustee.
All charges and interest are frozen.
You only pay what you can afford.
Wage arrestment’s stopped or lifted if current.
Lasts for 48 months.
Anything left at the end of the trust deed is written off.
Cons:
Any creditor that objects to the trust deed can still pursue your sequestration (although this very rarely happens).
It does have an adverse affect on your credit rating.
ScottishTrustDeed.info can help anyone who has been living in Scotland for 6 months or more by entering a trust deed. We do not charge setup or management fees. With our expert help, some of our clients have managed to write of up to 75% of their debt.
A typical client example in a Scottish Protected Trust Deed:
Total debts – £11,474
Credit Card 1 – £250
Credit Card 2 – £2,004
Council Tax Arrears – £3,652
Overdraft – £1,500
Personal Loan – £4,068
Total to pay back in the Scottish Protected Trust Deed – £5,520
48 payments of – £115
Writing off £5,954
To find out how much of your debt can you write off and start your journey to a debt free future, contact ScottishTrustDeed.info today,
You can fill in our online form or call 0141 582 1452.