The Local Government Finance Act 1992 treats them as alternatives and then, for one purpose only, deems them equivalent. Getting that right decides what you can argue and what has to happen before your wages are touched.

Here is each one in the words the statutes use, where they diverge, and what to do depending on which you are holding. What a summary warrant is covers the council tax route in full.

It is an authority to use diligence, granted by a sheriff on a local authority’s application and certificate. Paragraph 2(2) of Schedule 8 to the Local Government Finance Act 1992 says the sheriff “shall grant” it.

What paragraph 2 provides

Paragraph 2(1) of Schedule 8 to the Local Government Finance Act 1992 gives a council two alternatives: diligence authorised by a summary warrant, or diligence in pursuance of a decree granted in an action of payment.

Paragraph 2(2) then sets the mechanism. On an application by the authority accompanied by a certificate containing prescribed particulars, the sheriff must grant a warrant for the sum remaining due along with a surcharge of 10 per cent.

The four diligences it authorises

• An attachment, substituted into paragraph 2(3) with effect from 30 December 2002.
• A money attachment, inserted with effect from 23 November 2009.
• An earnings arrestment.
• An arrestment and action of furthcoming or sale.

That is a closed list. Inhibition is not on it, and neither is anything reaching land or heritable property, which is why whether a summary warrant shows on your credit file has the answer it does.

Which debts get one

Section 106 of the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987 defines “summary warrant” by listing the enactments that grant one. It is the best single answer to the question of what debts this route covers.

Two limbs of that definition should be ignored. One is the community charge, which is of historic interest only, and one was repealed with effect from 1 April 2002.

One more correction is worth making, because it is repeated everywhere. The non-domestic rates warrant is not in the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1975, which has no section 106.

A decree is the court’s decision at the end of an action of payment. The extract of it carries a warrant for execution, and that warrant is what lets diligence begin.

How you find out about it

You are cited. An action is raised, papers are served on you, and you can defend it, settle it or let it go undefended.

That is the difference a reader feels most sharply. Whether you get taken to court for a summary warrant sets out what happens instead when a council uses the other route.

Where the warrant for execution comes from

Section 87 of the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987 sets out what the warrant in a Court of Session extract authorises, and section 7 of the Sheriff Courts (Scotland) Extracts Act 1892, substituted by the same 1987 Act, does the job for a sheriff court extract.

There is a third route that belongs to neither, where the debtor consented to enforcement when signing the document. What summary diligence is covers that one, and it is not what a summary warrant is.

Almost every difference sits at the front end, before enforcement starts. Once either is in place they do much the same work.

The comparison, point by point

The one rule that stops a council using both

Paragraph 2(4) makes it incompetent for the sheriff to grant a warrant for a sum where an action has already been raised, and any existing warrant for that sum ceases to have effect if an action is raised later.

Paragraph 2(5) works the other way. Once a diligence has been executed under the warrant, raising an action for that sum is incompetent.

The rule bites per sum, not per person. A council can hold a warrant for one financial year and raise an action for another.

The triggers are not symmetrical either. A warrant dies on the raising of an action, while an action is barred only once a diligence has actually been executed.

A time to pay order works against both. A time to pay direction works only against a decree, because a direction is something a court makes when it grants one.

Why the order is available on a warrant

Section 15(3) of the 1987 Act defines “decree or other document” for sections 5 to 14, and limb (aa) is “a summary warrant”. So the order route is open, and what a time to pay order is sets out the application.

Section 5(1) requires that a charge has been served, an arrestment has been executed, or an action of adjudication has been commenced. The debt outstanding must be £25,000 or less excluding interest, a limit in force since 10 July 2000.

Whether an earnings arrestment on its own opens the door is not settled. Ask a money adviser or the sheriff clerk before assuming an application is competent.

Why the direction is not

A direction under section 1 is made by the court at the moment it grants decree. There is no moment like that in the summary warrant procedure, because there is no action and no decree.

Any page telling you a time to pay order is unavailable against a summary warrant has the two confused. It is the direction that is unavailable.

Not in the amount taken, which is worked out the same way either route. On a decree a charge for payment has to be served first, and whether a summary warrant needs one too is unsettled.

The steps side by side

On an ordinary court decree the position is settled. Section 90(1) of the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987 makes a charge for payment, served and expired unpaid, a precondition of an earnings arrestment, and section 90(3) sets the period at 14 days in the United Kingdom.

The document itself is explained at what a charge for payment is.

Why the warrant side of that row is left open

On a summary warrant it is not settled. Schedule 8 to the Local Government Finance Act 1992 authorises an earnings arrestment directly and says nothing about a charge, while section 90(1) carries no summary warrant exception on its face.

No web page should tell you the answer either way. Ask a money adviser or the sheriff clerk what applies on your own account before relying on it.

The protections attach to the diligence rather than to the route the creditor took to reach it. Whether you can get a wage arrestment without going to court deals with the point most readers arrive with.

Once, and it is worth knowing about. For attaching goods, the Debt Arrangement and Attachment (Scotland) Act 2002 puts a summary warrant inside its definition of “decree”.

Section 10(5) of the 2002 Act

The definition of “decree” in section 10(5) of the Debt Arrangement and Attachment (Scotland) Act 2002 runs from limb (a) to limb (i), and limb (c) is “a summary warrant”.

So a council with a summary warrant is in the same position as a creditor with a decree when it comes to attaching goods. The law deems them equivalent for enforcement while keeping them distinct in name.

Where they stay apart

They stay apart on the credit file, on the 10%, on whether you were heard, and on shelf life. How long a summary warrant is valid for deals with the last of those.

They also stay apart on third-party deductions from benefits. In Scotland the council needs a summary warrant or a decree before it can ask the DWP to deduct, and either will do.

With a decree, deal with the action and the charge. With a summary warrant, deal with the bill behind it and then with the payment.

If it is a summary warrant

Ask the council in writing for a breakdown by financial year, and check whether a discount, exemption or reduction was missed. Whether you can appeal a summary warrant sets out the routes that exist.

Where the account is already with a sheriff officer firm, the arrangement usually has to be made with the firm. Our council tax debt advice page sets out how we help.

If it is a decree

A charge for payment has to be served before wages can be arrested, so the 14 days is your window to apply for a time to pay order. Guidance on debt and decrees sits on mygov.scot.

A bank arrestment can also follow either document, and what a bank arrestment in Scotland is explains how that one works.