Eligibility is also tested on one day. Section 2(2)(c) measures your assets on the date the application is made, so a balance that was fine last month may not be fine now.

None of this is yours to work out alone. An approved money adviser runs the tests while preparing the application, and how a Minimal Asset Process works sets out the process the conditions let you into.

They cover your income, your debt level, your total assets, your largest single asset, land ownership, the certificate for sequestration, and two look-back periods for previous bankruptcies.

All eight, in one place

The conditions are in section 2 of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 2016, and they are cumulative. Meeting seven of them is not enough.

The land bar has no exceptions

You must not own land. Section 2(2)(e) rules out a MAP for anyone who does, whatever it is worth.

There is no carve-out for a small share or for negative equity, so a joint interest in a house defeats a MAP outright. Full administration sequestration permits land ownership, and the difference between the two routes covers what that costs you.

There are two ways in. Either the common financial tool shows you can pay nothing towards your debts, or you have been receiving certain benefits for at least six months.

The benefits route has a condition almost nobody prints

The benefits route only works if those payments are your only income. Someone receiving universal credit alongside wages goes through the common financial tool assessment instead.

That is on the face of regulation 13 of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Regulations 2016, which opens by asking whether the debtor has no other income than those payments at the date of the application. It has stood unamended since 30 November 2016.

So part-time earnings alongside universal credit take you off this route, however long you have been claiming. The nil contribution route is still open, and it is the one to use.

The prescribed payments

Two absences catch people out. Working tax credit and contribution-based jobseeker’s allowance or employment and support allowance are not on the list.

Neither are the disability benefits. Someone whose only income is a personal independence payment would use the nil contribution route rather than this one.

What the nil contribution route asks for

The common financial tool compares your income against your expenditure, and the qualifying outcome is an assessed contribution of nothing. The Accountant in Bankruptcy’s evidence checklist asks for three months or twelve weeks of payslips, self-employed accounts or an income and expenditure breakdown, pension statements and evidence of essential spending.

Your assets must be worth no more than £2,000 in total under section 2(2)(c), and no single item may be worth more than £1,000 under section 2(2)(d).

Gross value, not equity

Both tests are applied on the date the application is made, and liabilities are left out of account. Something you are still paying for is counted at what it is worth, not at what you have paid off.

That is harsher than most people expect. It is also why the disregards in section 2(3) matter so much.

Both figures have stood since 30 November 2016. Neither has been amended and no other amount has been prescribed.

What counts and what does not

Essential household goods are outside the count because section 88 keeps them from vesting in the trustee in the first place.

The savings rule is practice, not statute

The Accountant in Bankruptcy’s checklist says savings totalling more than £1,000 across more than one account mean the MAP criteria are not met, so several small balances are treated together.

Nothing in the Act or the regulations spells out that aggregation, so treat it as how the Accountant in Bankruptcy applies the single asset cap rather than as a statutory rule.

Insurance policies count at surrender value, and the Accountant in Bankruptcy’s guidance on assets tells advisers to establish immediate surrender values before an application goes in.

The vehicle

A vehicle you reasonably require and which is worth no more than £3,000 is left out of the asset calculation altogether, under section 2(3)(b).

It is a value ceiling rather than an equity ceiling, and nothing deducts outstanding finance from it. Keeping your car in a MAP covers valuations and what happens above £3,000.

Your total debts must be no more than £25,000, under section 2(2)(b) of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 2016.

Student loans sit outside the count

Section 2(2A) was inserted with effect from 29 March 2021 by the Bankruptcy (Miscellaneous Amendments) (Scotland) Regulations 2021, and it takes student loans made under the student loan regulations out of the £25,000 calculation.

The asymmetry is the part to plan around. National Debtline lists student loans among the debts you remain liable for after discharge, so the same loan is outside the test and outside the write-off.

There is no minimum

The old £1,500 floor was removed from section 2(2)(b)(i) by the Bankruptcy and Debt Arrangement Scheme (Miscellaneous Amendment) (Scotland) Regulations 2023, with effect from 6 February 2023, and no replacement has been prescribed.

On a very low income a small debt can be as unpayable as a large one. What the £25,000 limit covers works through the calculation debt by debt.

Ten years must have passed since any previous MAP, and five years since any other award of sequestration.

Both periods run from the award

Not from your discharge. A Minimal Asset Process awarded on 1 March 2017 and discharged that September blocks a new one until 2 March 2027.

The ten years in section 2(2)(g) counts only a previous MAP. The five years in section 2(2)(h) counts a previous debtor application by another route, or a creditor or trustee petition.

What the bars do not do

Neither closes bankruptcy altogether. The ten-year rule bars the MAP route rather than sequestration generally.

There is a limit to that, though. Full administration has its own five-year bar where an award of sequestration has been made, so an award inside five years blocks both routes.

The conditions in section 2(2) refer only to an award of sequestration, and a protected trust deed is not one. No published guidance addresses the point either way, so ask your money adviser before relying on it.

Why the statutory argument is a strong one

Both repeat conditions are drafted in terms of an award of sequestration, and nothing in section 2(2) mentions a trust deed at all.

The drafter was plainly alive to trust deeds elsewhere in the same section, where a trust deed that failed to become protected is made a route into full administration.

Why we still say ask

That is construction of the section rather than a published answer. The Accountant in Bankruptcy’s own MAP guide does not mention previous trust deeds as an eligibility factor at all.

One caveat travels with the answer in any event. A trust deed that was converted into sequestration produced an award, and that award engages the five-year bar.

So put your full history in front of your adviser before relying on this. A trust deed against a Minimal Asset Process compares the two solutions themselves.

The test is habitual residence in Scotland or an established place of business here, at any time in the year immediately before the application.

Two limbs, and a look-back

The test is in section 15 of the 2016 Act, which lets the Accountant in Bankruptcy determine a debtor application where the debtor had an established place of business in Scotland or was habitually resident in Scotland.

The relevant time is any point in the year immediately before the application. So a recent move does not necessarily shut the door, and a business connection can be enough on its own.

For a debtor application the geography is Scotland as a whole. Sheriffdoms matter for creditor petitions, not for this.

Failing a condition rules out the Minimal Asset Process, not debt relief. Full administration sequestration, a protected trust deed and the Debt Arrangement Scheme all have different entry tests.

Some failures are temporary

A certificate for sequestration that has gone stale can be granted again, since it lasts 30 days. Savings above the limit may fall back once essential costs are met.

Timing is something your adviser can plan around. How to apply for a MAP sets out the order the paperwork has to be done in.

Others are structural

Owning land, owing more than £25,000 or having been sequestrated inside the look-back period cannot be worked around.

Do not try to work around them. Alienating property for no consideration is one of the grounds on which a bankruptcy restrictions order may be made.

The alternatives worth asking about

Full administration has no debt ceiling and permits land ownership, and the Debt Arrangement Scheme repays debts in full with no insolvency at all. Choosing between a Debt Arrangement Scheme and a MAP puts those two together.

One appointment settles which of them fits. If a MAP does fit, the same adviser can grant the certificate and submit the application.