The cut off is s.173 of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 2016. It bites on protection, not on signature, and not on any moment of creditor approval.

Below is the timeline stage by stage, what a protected trust deed costs you, and how it sits against the other routes that stop a wage arrestment in Scotland.

No. Signing starts a process that has a five week objection period built into it, and the arrestment keeps deducting every pay day until the deed is registered as protected.

The stages from signing to protection

Most of the stages below are fixed by Part 14 of the 2016 Act. The three clear days of consideration is not one of them, because it comes from Scottish Ministers’ guidance issued under s.167(5).

Part 14 applies to deeds granted on or after 30 November 2016. A deed granted between 28 November 2013 and 29 November 2016 is governed by the Protected Trust Deeds (Scotland) Regulations 2013 instead.

Added together those steps give a floor of roughly six weeks from signing to protection and an outer limit of roughly eleven to twelve weeks. That is arithmetic from the statute rather than an observed average.

What the gap costs in real money

The deduction carries on throughout, at the rates in force since 6 April 2025 under the Diligence against Earnings (Variation) (Scotland) Regulations 2024. On monthly net pay of £1,800.00 that is £172.50 a pay day, so two more pay days cost £345.00 and three cost £517.50, which is why how much they can take from your wages matters during the wait.

On £2,400.00 net the figure is £292.50 each time, so three pay days come to £877.50. Our wage arrestment calculator gives you your own number.

A statutory moratorium on diligence is the instrument people reach for. It covers the window cleanly for anything that has not started yet, and its effect on an arrestment your employer is already operating is the contested point.

It is applied for through the Accountant in Bankruptcy, usually with a money adviser preparing it for you.

A statutory moratorium gives six months of protection and you get one per rolling 12 months. It stops service of a charge for payment, stops new diligence and stops creditor petitions for sequestration.

What a moratorium holds off

• Service of a charge for payment.
• New diligence, including a new earnings arrestment, a bank arrestment and an attachment of goods.
• Creditor petitions for your sequestration.

Six months covers the whole trust deed process with room to spare, which is why an adviser reaches for it first.

The contested point, and why it matters most on this page

Whether a creditor can carry on an earnings arrestment your employer is already operating is treated differently in the Accountant in Bankruptcy’s adviser guidance from the general statement of the rule. Ask a money adviser to confirm the position on your facts before relying on it.

By the time a trust deed is being discussed the deduction is usually already coming off every pay day. So get that answer before you plan on the gap being covered.

What a moratorium does not do

• It does not stop a creditor obtaining a decree.
• It does not freeze interest or charges, which keep accruing throughout.
• It does not write anything off, and the debt is untouched when it ends.

Getting the order of events right

Because you normally get one moratorium in any twelve month period, using it without a plan behind it wastes the only shield you have. An exception applies to some former joint DAS applicants.

An adviser will usually want the trust deed proposal moving first, so the six months runs alongside the whole route to registration.

Any earnings arrestment, current maintenance arrestment or conjoined arrestment order ceases to have effect, and no new one can be executed against you. It happens by operation of law, with no application needed.

The provision is s.173 of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 2016, and the trigger date is the registration date rather than anything you sign.

What protection reaches, and what it does not

Part 14 says nothing about a funds arrestment already sitting on your account.

Money already deducted is credited, not refunded

Everything taken from your wages before the date of protection stays taken. It is credited against the debt rather than returned to you.

Those payments reduce the claim your creditor can put into the trust deed.

A refund only arises where payroll got the sum wrong or kept deducting after protection. Query that with payroll first, then with the sheriff officer firm named on the schedule.

Who gets told, and who does not

AiB tells the trustee within seven days, and the trustee has seven days to notify you and every known creditor.

Your employer is not on that list. Part 14 provides for no statutory notice to an employer on protection, so payroll may not know unless you or your trustee tell them.

That is a real difference from the Debt Arrangement Scheme, where the DAS Administrator sends the notice of recall to the employer. On a trust deed, chase it yourself if the deduction is still showing after the registration date.

Protection is defeated where a majority in number of notified creditors, or creditors holding not less than one third in value, object in writing within the relevant period. The deed then stays an ordinary trust deed and the arrestment carries on.

The two thresholds are alternatives, so one creditor holding a third of the value can block protection alone.

The objection test, and why silence counts as agreement

The period is five weeks, running from the day after publication in the Register of Insolvencies, and objections arriving after it closes cannot be recorded.

Creditors who never reply are deemed to have acceded. A creditor who never claims still has its debt counted in the one third test.

What an unprotected trust deed does not do

An ordinary trust deed does not bind a creditor who refuses to accede. That creditor can sue, do diligence and petition for your sequestration as though the deed did not exist.

So an earnings arrestment can start or continue, and the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987 tables apply as before. Protection is the whole point of the exercise.

The four week deadline for applying to AiB is the other way it fails. Miss it and the deed cannot be protected unless a sheriff directs otherwise.

Two ways protection can come undone later

Where a material error is spotted within three months of protection, AiB can remove protected status. If AiB later agrees your trustee may refuse your discharge, creditors stop being deemed to have acceded and can enforce again.

You pay a monthly contribution assessed on your surplus income rather than a figure set by the statutory tables. Where two consecutive payments are missed, the trustee can instruct your employer to deduct it at source.

That is the real trade. A deduction fixed by the tables in the Diligence against Earnings (Variation) (Scotland) Regulations 2024 is replaced by a figure built from your own income and expenditure.

How the contribution is worked out

The payment period is normally 48 months from the date of granting, and your whole surplus income goes to creditors. Surplus income means total income less allowed expenditure.

The assessment uses the common financial tool under s.89 of the 2016 Act. Contributions cannot be drawn from Universal Credit, Social Security Scotland benefits or tax credits.

When your employer gets involved

The employer route is s.174, and it opens only after two consecutive missed contributions. Your employer may charge the same fee as under the arrestment rules.

Ask which route your trustee intends to use before you sign.

What goes in, and what still has to be paid

Arrears of credit cards, loans, overdrafts, rent, utilities and council tax accrued before signing can all go in. Ongoing liabilities cannot.

Your current year council tax, rent, mortgage and utilities keep being paid separately. Fall behind on the current year and the council can apply for a summary warrant on the new balance, with a 10% surcharge added when it is granted.

Student loans, court fines, secured debts and liabilities arising from fraud survive your discharge. Our council tax debt advice page covers what a council will agree to alongside a formal solution.

Interest is not claimable in the trust deed beyond the date of granting. That is not the same as saying every creditor stops applying it to the account.

It is a formal insolvency, so your name goes on a public register, your credit file carries it for six years, the payments normally run for four years, and the trustee’s fees come out of what you pay in.

The public register and your credit file

Credit reference agencies hold the entry for six years, and mygov.scot dates that from when the trust deed begins rather than from your discharge.

AiB’s trust deed information document puts the register entry at the deed’s duration plus twelve months after completion.

Four years, and what happens to what you own

The deed conveys your estate to the trustee, apart from protected items and any home excluded under s.166, and binds you to hand over estate acquired in the next four years.

Discharge is not automatic at 48 months either. Your trustee has to apply, and AiB can refuse to register it.

Employment, and the doors that close

mygov.scot says some employers, most commonly financial institutions, do not allow staff who have signed a trust deed to work for them. That is a different question from whether your employer can sack you for a wage arrestment.

It also says you cannot be a company director unless your trustee agrees. Your trustee has to advise you on the possible effect on your job before you grant the deed.

Not always. The Debt Arrangement Scheme has the more direct effect on a live arrestment and keeps you off the insolvency register, so it is usually looked at first where you can repay in full.

Trust deed, Debt Arrangement Scheme and sequestration side by side

In 2024-25 AiB registered 4,920 protected trust deeds and approved 5,292 Debt Arrangement Scheme debt payment programmes.

When the Debt Arrangement Scheme is looked at first

If you can clear the debt given time and frozen interest, a debt payment programme keeps you off the Register of Insolvencies. Our guide to whether the Debt Arrangement Scheme stops a wage arrestment sets out how approval affects a live deduction.

If the arithmetic never works no matter how long you stretch it, an insolvency solution comes into the conversation. A trust deed needs total debts of at least £5,000 at the date of granting.

Where to get the comparison done

No solution should be picked off a website, including this one. Our guide on where to go for help to stop a wage arrestment lists what to take with you.

Ask for the moratorium and the options comparison in the same conversation, so nothing new starts while the decision is made properly.