That is not the end of it, though. Full administration sequestration has no land bar at all, and whether you are eligible for a MAP covers the other seven conditions in full.

That you own no heritable property at all. Section 2(2)(e) asks only whether you own land and not what it is worth, so a share, a low value and negative equity all leave the condition unsatisfied.

Five words with nothing else in them

The words in section 2(2)(e) are that the debtor does not own land. There is no figure attached to them and no power anywhere in section 2 to prescribe one.

A house, a flat, a garage or a field are all heritable property, and heritable property is land. Ownership is the entire test.

The words have stood unchanged since 30 November 2016. No amendment has touched them and no regulation has softened them.

It is not restricted to the home you live in

Nothing in the subsection limits it to your residence. An inherited flat you have never lived in, a share in a family croft or a lock-up all defeat a Minimal Asset Process application.

The contrast that makes the rule make sense

Look at the condition next to it. Section 2(2)(c) caps your assets at £2,000 leaving out of account any liabilities, so that one ignores your debts, while the land condition ignores value.

Neither is an equity test. That is why a property worth less than the loan secured over it still shuts the door.

Yes. A share in a house is land that you own, and section 2(2)(e) contains no carve-out for a part interest held with a partner, a sibling or an ex-partner.

Why there is no share to value here

Owning half of something is owning. The valuation arguments that arise over jointly owned belongings never start, because this condition never asks what anything is worth.

If you are unsure whose name is on the title, check it before your adviser prepares anything. The title is what the answer turns on.

That also means a property you inherited a share of years ago counts, even where you have never had the keys. Ownership on paper is enough.

Jointly owned belongings are a different and unanswered question

No source addresses how a jointly owned item is counted, whether at its full value or at your share of it. A joint bank account is the case most people ask about and it is not answered anywhere published.

So a joint car or a joint savings account needs a decision from your adviser and from the Accountant in Bankruptcy before the application goes in, not after. What happens to a jointly owned asset in a MAP sets out how far the published material actually goes.

Land against everything else

No. The condition asks whether you own land and not what your interest in it is worth, so a property worth less than the debt secured over it still rules a Minimal Asset Process out.

Why people expect otherwise

Most debt tests work on what you would be left with. This one does not, and the mismatch catches out readers who have worked their eligibility out from an English page.

Selling or transferring to get round it is a bad idea

Giving property away for nothing is one of the grounds for a bankruptcy restrictions order, and section 156(1) says an order must be made where the decision maker thinks it appropriate having regard to your conduct.

An order made by the Accountant in Bankruptcy runs for between two and five years. Speak to a money adviser before moving any asset at all.

What a homeowner should do instead

Get the position looked at as a whole rather than testing yourself against one condition. How sequestration works in Scotland covers the route that is open to you.

Renting is no barrier at all, and neither is living with parents or a partner. What your adviser checks instead is the value of what you do own on the day the application is signed.

What the evidence looks like

The Accountant in Bankruptcy’s evidence checklist asks for proof of tenancy, bank statements verifying your balances at the date of signing, and a valuation for any vehicle owned outright.

A lease, a rent statement or a universal credit statement will normally do for tenancy. Your adviser will say which format is expected.

Ordinary household things are outside the count

Section 2(3)(a) takes out of the calculation any property that would be excluded from vesting in the trustee. National Debtline puts the same point in plainer words: basic household items do not count.

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).

Savings are where applications actually fail

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.

Note what that is and is not. It is how the Accountant in Bankruptcy assesses applications, and how assets are valued against the £2,000 limit explains why no valuation rules exist to check it against.

Seven more, all in section 2(2), and every one has to be satisfied on the day the debtor application is made. Land ownership is only the one that stops people first.

The eight conditions in order

No minimum debt is currently prescribed for the Minimal Asset Process. The old £1,500 floor stopped applying on 6 February 2023, though the power to set one again remains.

Two of them are commonly misreported

Student loan debt is left out of the £25,000 figure by section 2(2A), which has applied since 29 March 2021 and which almost no page states. Which debts count towards the debt limit works through the calculation.

The other is the benefits route. It works only where the prescribed payments are your only income, so someone earning alongside universal credit goes through the financial assessment instead.

Three, and each treats the property differently. Full administration sequestration, a protected trust deed and the Debt Arrangement Scheme are all open to a homeowner.

The three routes side by side

Full administration sequestration has a minimum debt of £3,000 under section 2(8)(a). That figure is unrelated to the vehicle disregard, which happens to use the same number.

The trust deed threshold runs the other way

A trust deed has a floor rather than a ceiling. Section 164(3) requires total debts including interest of at least £5,000 on the day you grant the deed.

It also needs surplus income to fund contributions, which is the opposite of the MAP entry test. Whether you lose your home in a trust deed covers how the property itself is handled, and MAP against a trust deed compares the two.

None of them is automatically right

Which fits depends on your income, the size of the debt and what the property is worth. That is a conversation with a money adviser rather than a decision to reach from a web page.

It can end the Minimal Asset Process. Section 86 vests property acquired after the date of sequestration in the trustee at the date of acquisition, and acquiring land is exactly the sort of change that triggers a review.

How conversion works

Paragraph 2 of Schedule 1 lets the Accountant in Bankruptcy decide that the MAP modifications should stop applying. Paragraph 2(5)(a) turns on your total assets exceeding a prescribed figure.

The Act prints £5,000 on its face and regulation 14 prescribes £2,000 in its place, so £2,000 is the operative number and anyone quoting the Act alone has it wrong.

What changes if it happens

Creditor claims and dividends come back, a contribution order becomes live, and the automatic six-month discharge disappears with the modifications. Whether a MAP can be transferred to full administration sets out each consequence.

The Accountant in Bankruptcy’s guide for MAP debtors also warns that a transfer caused by inaccurate information may bring an additional administration charge, and that discharge waits until it is paid.

Which is why the reporting duty matters

Tell the Accountant in Bankruptcy about money received and inheritances as soon as you know. The register entry and the credit file consequences of a bankruptcy are long enough without adding a conversion, and mygov.scot sets out what a bankruptcy affects.