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.

Only one of them has to be satisfied

Both routes live in section 2(2)(a), and the subsection is written in the alternative. Meeting either one gets you past that condition.

Nothing in the income route asks where the money comes from. Wages, self-employed earnings and a pension in payment are all assessed the same way.

The two routes side by side

Where the £75 figure people quote comes from

It is a surplus income threshold used in the England and Wales Debt Relief Order scheme. Nothing like it appears in the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 2016 or in the regulations made under it.

Several commercial pages print it as the Scottish threshold and others print £50. Neither figure exists in the Scottish provisions at all.

The Scottish figures are the £2,000 and £1,000 asset caps in section 2(2)(c) and (d), and the £25,000 debt ceiling. The caps have stood unamended since 30 November 2016 and the ceiling since 29 March 2021.

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.

The condition most pages leave out

Regulation 13(2) of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Regulations 2016 opens by requiring that the debtor has no other income than those payments at the date the application is made.

That word governs the whole list underneath it. Six months of universal credit alongside wages does not satisfy section 2(2)(a)(ii).

The prescribed payments, with the condition attached

Working tax credit is not on that list, and neither is a contribution-based benefit or a disability benefit. Whether universal credit qualifies you works through the list in detail.

So what does a working claimant do?

The same thing as anyone else in work: the common financial tool assessment under section 2(2)(a)(i). The benefits route being closed does not close the Minimal Asset Process.

This is the single commonest misunderstanding in the subject. It costs people an application they would have qualified for by the other route.

The prescribed tool is the Common Financial Statement, under regulation 15(1) of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Regulations 2016.

What the assessment does

Regulation 15(2) sets the contribution as your surplus income above the lower of the published trigger figures for a reasonable amount of expenditure, or your actual expenditure.

So the comparison is against allowed spending rather than against gross pay. Two people on the same wage can be assessed very differently.

Where the tool comes from

Section 89 lets Ministers specify the tool and section 90(3) requires the Accountant in Bankruptcy to use it when making a contribution order.

Most sources name the Standard Financial Statement, which is the tool used elsewhere in the United Kingdom. Regulations that would have moved Scotland to it were drafted in 2018 and never made.

The Accountant in Bankruptcy publishes the common financial tool material advisers work from, and your adviser runs the assessment with you before anything is submitted.

A contribution order is still made, at zero

Section 90(1) requires one in every sequestration and section 90(4) allows the amount to be fixed at zero, which is what AiB’s guide for MAP debtors says happens. Whether you make payments during a MAP sets it out.

All of them. The income gateway is one of eight tests in section 2(2), and the debt and asset limits apply the same way to someone in work.

The ones that bite hardest on a working applicant

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

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).

The debt limit has a carve-out almost nobody prints, covered at which debts count towards the limit.

Savings are the usual problem

The Accountant in Bankruptcy’s evidence checklist treats savings above £1,000 across all your accounts as defeating a Minimal Asset Process application. That is its practice rather than something the Act states.

Someone in work is more likely to have a balance sitting in a second account. What happens to your savings in a MAP explains how far the published material goes.

And the conditions that have nothing to do with money

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

A part share in a property counts as ownership for that condition. It is the one test with no value threshold attached to it at all.

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

The car you drive to work

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).

Reasonable requirement is not defined in the Act and no source lists the reasons that qualify. Above £3,000 there is no disregard at all, which whether you can keep your car works through on figures.

More than a benefits applicant. The Accountant in Bankruptcy’s evidence checklist asks for payslips, evidence of essential expenditure and bank statements at the signing date.

What the checklist asks for

The signing date matters more than people expect

The checklist asks for balances verified at the date of signing, and says verification will be requested wherever a statement period shows a balance near £1,000.

A wage landing the day before can therefore change the answer. Your adviser will usually plan the timing around it.

Highlight your own statements

Marking up the essential spending on your bank statements saves a round of questions. It is the single most useful thing you can do before the appointment.

You have to report it, and the case can change form. Paragraph 2 of Schedule 1 lets AiB end the MAP modifications where it assesses you as able to make a contribution.

The duty is AiB’s, and it is real

The guide for MAP debtors tells you to inform the trustee of any change in circumstances, including a change in income, money received or an inheritance.

No section of the Act creates that proactive duty on its own. Concealing assets or making a false statement about them is a separate criminal offence.

What conversion would mean

The automatic six-month discharge goes rather than restarting. Discharge becomes a decision AiB may take at any time after twelve months from the original award.

A contribution order also becomes live, running for 48 months from the first payment. What happens if your income improves covers the trigger, the notice and the appeal.

Not always, and the alternative is decided by the same assessment. Where the tool shows a surplus, a debt payment programme becomes the option worth looking at.

The two solutions are near opposites

A Debt Arrangement Scheme writes off none of the money you owe. Interest, fees, penalties and charges stop, so the balance stops growing, but the principal is repaid to the last penny.

A Minimal Asset Process needs an assessed contribution of nil. A debt payment programme needs money to pay from, so the same assessment usually points at one or the other.

A MAP against the Debt Arrangement Scheme sets both out side by side on figures.

What a MAP costs you beyond the money

It is a real sequestration, and the award goes on the public Register of Insolvencies. National Debtline sets out what that means.

mygov.scot says bankruptcy can stay on a credit file for at least six years. No statute sets that period, and the three credit reference agencies publish different retention schedules.

There are also six months of statutory conditions after discharge. They are disclosure duties rather than bans.

One thing it does immediately

An award of sequestration ends an earnings arrestment. Section 72(2) of the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987 says an earnings arrestment, a current maintenance arrestment, a conjoined arrestment order or a deduction from earnings order ceases to have effect on the date of sequestration.

That happens by operation of law on the date of the award, and whether a MAP stops an existing wage arrestment covers the timing, and whether you are eligible runs through every condition.