A percentage written off belongs to a different solution. The Accountant in Bankruptcy’s annual statistics report a mean dividend to ordinary creditors of 18.1 pence in the pound across protected trust deeds for 2025-26, which is where large write-off figures come from.

AiB publishes no equivalent figure for a Debt Payment Programme, because there is nothing to publish. A completed programme repays the principal in full.

That distinction matters because the scheme is not insolvency. How the Debt Arrangement Scheme works sets out the whole procedure, and our Debt Arrangement Scheme page explains how we help.

There is one exception buried in the regulations, and it is not the settlement route it is sometimes made to look like. It is dealt with in full below.

The interest, fees, penalties and other charges, and only on completion. They stop accruing as soon as the application is recorded, and they cease to be owed if and when the programme finishes.

The date that counts is the application date

The freeze runs from the day the application goes in the register, not the day it is approved. The Debt Arrangement Scheme (Interest, Fees, Penalties and Other Charges) (Scotland) Regulations 2011 are the source, and regulation 4(1) is the operative provision.

For anyone whose balance has been climbing every month, that is where the relief actually comes from. What the interest freeze covers goes through it.

It is a suspension until you finish

Regulation 4(1) says those sums are not payable unless and until the programme is revoked, and cease to be owed if and when it is completed. So the freeze is real but conditional.

Nothing of the principal goes with it. Every pound of the balance owed at the date of application is repaid through the programme.

The charges that stop are the ones that would otherwise have accrued after the application date. Arrears and charges already added to the account before then are part of the balance and go into the programme, which which debts can and cannot go in covers.

Because the scheme’s fees come out of what creditors are paid rather than being added to what you owe. On programmes applied for from 4 November 2019, 22 per cent is deducted before the money reaches them.

Every £100 you pay

The 20 per cent distributor fee was set by SSI 2019/315, in force 4 November 2019. Programmes applied for before that date sit on the older rates, where creditors recover at least 90 per cent.

You still repay 100 per cent

The gap is a cost creditors carry. The Accountant in Bankruptcy’s guidance on fees directs creditors to write off the sums paid away in fees rather than pursue you for them.

That is the one genuine write-off inside the fee structure, and it is not yours to count. Whether the fees come out of your payment or are added to your debt answers the question people usually mean to ask.

Composition needs both twelve years from approval and seventy per cent of the debt paid, under regulation 46A(1). It is a long stop for very long programmes rather than something you can ask for.

Both conditions, not either

Regulation 46A was inserted whole by SSI 2013/225 with effect from 2 July 2013. The twelve years runs from approval and excludes any period during which payments were deferred under a payment break.

The offer is made by the DAS Administrator or your continuing money adviser, with your consent, to each creditor taking part. It is not something you make yourself.

What happens if creditors accept

Where a creditor accepts the offer, the liability to repay that debt is discharged, and a creditor who does not respond within 21 days is deemed to accept.

Where only some accept, the programme is varied to take out the debts of those who did, and the rest carry on being paid. The Accountant in Bankruptcy’s money adviser guidance records that debts completed by composition are reported to the credit reference agencies as partially settled.

No offer of composition may be made where the debtor is a legal person, trust or unincorporated body. Composition is for individuals.

Only by agreement, or by paying the balance. There are three routes that genuinely end a programme early, and composition is not one of them.

The three real routes, and the one that is not

Paying the outstanding balance in a lump sum completes the programme in the ordinary way. That is how the Accountant in Bankruptcy describes it rather than something the regulations spell out.

The route worth asking about

Since 4 November 2019 the DAS Administrator must approve a variation that shortens a programme, under regulation 38(1A)(b).

Where creditors agree in writing to settle for less, a variation has to be applied for so the balances can be adjusted and the programme closed properly. Paying off a programme early with a lump sum sets the three routes out separately.

None of that is an entitlement. No creditor has to accept anything less than the full balance.

It comes back. The charges are cancelled only on completion, so on revocation your creditors may apply the interest and charges that would have been payable had you never started.

The 14 days

There is a short breathing space. The Accountant in Bankruptcy’s guidance on revocation says creditors cannot take enforcement action, and cannot apply interest, fees and charges, until 14 days have elapsed from the revocation date.

If a review is requested, that becomes 28 days. Those periods are in the regulations rather than being a matter of practice.

Why arrears matter more than they look

Arrears are a ground for revocation, measured as the aggregate of payments due in a period of two months beginning after the last payment you made. That wording has applied since 2 July 2013.

The Administrator must give at least four weeks’ notice of a proposal to revoke, and must weigh your representations. Why a programme gets revoked goes through the grounds, and a variation is far easier to arrange than a rescue.

Sequestration and a protected trust deed, because both are insolvency. Both also appear on the public Register of Insolvencies, which a Debt Payment Programme does not.

The four routes on the write-off question

No percentage can honestly be promised at the outset. What is written off is whatever is left unpaid when you are discharged, which depends on what you can afford over the term and what your estate realises.

For cases concluded in 2025-26 the Accountant in Bankruptcy reported a mean dividend to ordinary creditors of 18.1 pence in the pound across protected trust deeds. That is a published outcome, not a promise about your case.

What survives a sequestration discharge

Discharge does not clear everything. Section 145(3) of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 2016 keeps court fines, penalties, compensation and forfeiture orders and liabilities arising from fraud outside it, and a secured creditor keeps its security.

Neither route should be chosen for the write-off alone. How much debt a trust deed actually writes off and the scheme against a trust deed set out the trade properly.

For a lot of people, yes. It stops interest, stops enforcement, recalls an arrestment already running, and leaves your home, your car and your assets alone.

What you get instead of a write-off

• A charge for payment and any diligence become incompetent while the programme is approved.
• Any arrestment of your income or property already running is recalled on approval.
• Nothing is conveyed to a trustee, and nothing is sold to pay creditors.
• You are not on the Register of Insolvencies, because this is not insolvency.

The median debt in a programme was £16,200 in 2025-26 and the median monthly contribution £260. What a Debt Arrangement Scheme costs puts those figures in context.

The honest downsides

Programmes are long, an approved one is recorded on the free and searchable DAS Register, and new credit is restricted while it runs. The scheme’s real disadvantages sets them out.

No credit reference agency publishes a retention rule for a Debt Arrangement Scheme. Experian, Equifax and TransUnion all publish what they hold and for how long, and none of them lists a Debt Arrangement Scheme at all.

The widely quoted six years is the rule for insolvency entries, and a Debt Arrangement Scheme is not an insolvency. Rebuilding your credit afterwards starts from what your creditors actually report.