The Financial Conduct Authority’s glossary describes a plan as an agreement between a customer and their lenders. The unit is the customer, not the household.

A joint debt is one you both signed for, and it stays joint whatever either of you arranges. What a debt management plan is sets out the basics.

No, and there could not be. There is no statutory form of a plan at all, so there is no joint form of it either.

Why the question has no legal answer

A debt management plan is an informal arrangement rather than a statutory scheme. No Act of Parliament creates it, nothing prescribes its form, and it binds nobody by force of law.

What is binding is your contract with the provider, not the plan itself. The creditors are not parties to it.

What a provider means when it offers one

Nothing defines the term, so nothing establishes what any provider means by it. Whatever it means, it is an administrative convenience rather than a legal status, because no legal status exists to offer.

So ask what happens to each of you if one stops paying, and get the answer in writing. Setting up a plan covers the paperwork either way.

Two arrangements is the ordinary answer

Each of you makes offers to your own creditors, and the joint debts appear in both sets of figures. That is how a household with two sets of debts is normally handled.

It stays joint. Your arrangement does not bind the creditor and does not release the other account holder from anything.

The effect on your partner, by debt type

No creditor has to accept a debt management plan, and nothing requires one to give a reason for refusing.

A reduced payment on a joint account is a reduced payment for both

The account is in both names, so how it is paid is recorded against both of you. Neither of you can change that unilaterally.

That is worth understanding before you offer anything. Whether a plan affects your credit score sets out what gets recorded.

Council tax is the Scottish one couples get caught by

Joint liability for council tax means the council can pursue either of you for the whole bill, and whether you are jointly liable with your partner sets out when that applies.

Yes, and it is the usual approach. The two budgets come from one set of household figures, which is why a provider will ask about both incomes.

How the household figures work

An adviser assessing what a Scottish household can afford uses the common financial tool, prescribed by regulation 15 of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Regulations 2016, which works from household income and expenditure.

A debt management provider is not bound by that instrument, and it will still want the household picture. Which budget information you need sets out what to gather.

A partner who is not in an arrangement still appears in the budget

Their income counts towards the household’s costs even though their debts are their own. That is not the same as making them liable for anything.

Two providers or one

Some couples use the same provider and some use different ones. What matters is that the figures add up to one household, not that the paperwork sits in one place.

If you use different providers, tell each what the other is doing. A creditor comparing two offers on the same joint account will notice if they do not match.

Splitting the joint debts

A joint balance usually appears in both sets of offers, with each of you offering a share. Tell the creditor what the other is offering so it can see the whole picture.

Nothing is published, because there is no register of arrangements. What shows is how the joint accounts are being paid.

There is no public record at all

A debt management plan appears on no register in Scotland. The Accountant in Bankruptcy keeps the DAS Register for debt payment programmes and the Register of Insolvencies for trust deeds and sequestrations.

Your credit file is yours alone

A sole account is recorded on your file and not on theirs. A joint agreement is in both names, so it is recorded on both, and whether a plan affects your credit score covers what the entries look like.

Your creditors are the ones under a duty about who learns of the debt

CONC 7.9.7, which is a rule, requires a firm to take reasonable steps to keep third parties from becoming aware that you are being pursued in respect of a debt.

That binds the lender, the collection agency and the debt purchaser, because CONC 7.9 governs debt collection conduct. Your own provider is bound instead by CONC 8, and if it has written to the wrong person that is a complaint.

Only one of them does. A debt payment programme can be applied for jointly, and a trust deed and a sequestration cannot.

The four routes

Two people can apply together if they are spouses or civil partners of each other, or living together as if they were. That condition is in regulation 22(1)(b), substituted on 29 October 2018 and amended on 4 November 2019.

Since 2 July 2013 the debt test is that each of them is liable for a debt the programme would pay, rather than that both are liable for the same debt. A joint programme is not open to any two people who happen to share a debt.

A joint programme sits in regulation 22 of the Debt Arrangement Scheme (Scotland) Regulations 2011, and whether you can do a joint Debt Arrangement Scheme sets out how it works.

A trust deed is a personal deed

It is granted by one person over their own estate, with a statutory minimum of £5,000 of debt at the date of granting under section 164(3) of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 2016.

A couple who both need one grant two, and each is assessed separately. Nothing joins them.

And Scottish bankruptcy is not English bankruptcy

Scotland has the Accountant in Bankruptcy where England and Wales have the Official Receiver and an adjudicator, and the Scottish process is called sequestration rather than bankruptcy.

A creditor here petitions for sequestration and the court makes an award. The difference between a plan and sequestration sets that out.

One person’s payment can keep a joint debt alive against the other. That is a Scottish rule and it catches separated couples every year.

The prescription point

Section 6 of the Prescription and Limitation (Scotland) Act 1973 gives most consumer debts a five-year negative prescription, which an acknowledgement interrupts.

Section 10(2) then draws a distinction that matters here. An acknowledgement by performance, which means a payment, binds everyone jointly and severally liable.

Either kind of acknowledgement has to be made to the creditor or its agent, under section 10(1). A payment to a collection agency counts and a remark to a family member does not.

An acknowledgement by written admission binds only the person who makes it, under the same subsection. So a payment revives a joint debt against your former partner and a letter does not.

What to do about it

• Establish which debts are genuinely joint before either of you pays anything.
• Take advice on any old debt before making a payment towards it.
• Ask the creditor to confirm in writing what each of you is being held liable for.
• Close or convert joint accounts you no longer both use.

Council tax and separation are a common pairing

Joint liability for a council tax year does not end when one of you moves out. The council can still pursue either of you for the whole of that year’s bill.

Tell the council the date the household changed and ask what each of you is now liable for. Get the answer in writing.

And an arrangement protects neither of you from enforcement

A plan does not stop enforcement. It has no statutory effect on diligence at all.

A creditor with a decree against one of you can instruct diligence against that person, and whether a plan stops a wage arrestment sets out what does.

Six things, and all of them are easier settled first. A money adviser will work through them with both of you in one appointment.

The checklist

Nothing obliges any creditor to accept either of your offers, and whether creditors have to accept covers what happens when one refuses.

Consider whether one arrangement is enough

Where the debts are almost all in one name, one arrangement may be all that is needed. Two arrangements for two people with separate debts is the other common shape.

Write down who is responsible for what

A short note of which debts each of you is dealing with saves a great deal later. It is particularly worth doing if there is any chance you will not always be together.

And get the advice together

Citizens Advice Scotland, StepChange, National Debtline and Advice Direct Scotland all advise couples free of charge, and National Debtline’s Scottish guide sets out the options available here.

A joint programme under the Debt Arrangement Scheme is the one route built for two people, which is why it is worth asking about first.