Getting that distinction right changes what you plan for. The most common mistake in this market is treating twelve months as the end of the case.

What follows separates your discharge, your trustee’s discharge and everything that outlives both. How sequestration works covers the process itself.

Not in a full administration. Section 137(2) says the Accountant in Bankruptcy may discharge the debtor at any time after the date which is 12 months after the award.

Read the two words that carry it

It is a decision rather than a date. Sections 137 and 138 give a discretion exercisable at any time after twelve months, with a review and an appeal if it goes against you.

May, and at any time after. Neither of those makes twelve months a date on which anything happens by itself.

The steps before the certificate

Where the Accountant in Bankruptcy is itself the trustee, section 138 does the same work with a different procedure, and it must decide as soon as practicable after the twelve-month date.

Minimal Asset Process is the automatic one

Section 140(1) says the debtor is discharged on the date which is 6 months after the award. That is is rather than may, and there is nothing to apply for.

You may then apply for a certificate of discharge under section 140(2). How long a sequestration lasts sets the two timetables side by side.

Your liability for the debts you owed on one particular day. Section 145(1) discharges you of all debts and obligations you had contracted, or were liable for, at the date of sequestration.

For most households that is the bulk of it

Credit and store cards, personal loans, catalogue debt, overdrafts, council tax arrears and utility arrears are all listed as included by National Debtline and by Citizens Advice Scotland.

You also stop being an undischarged bankrupt, which ends the restrictions that turn on that status. A bankruptcy restrictions order runs separately and does not.

What it does not end

Discharge frees you from the debts it covers, but it does not end the sequestration. Your trustee carries on, a debtor contribution order carries on, and the estate is still being dealt with.

Section 93(2) and the sections dealing with the trustee’s own discharge carry the point, and the Accountant in Bankruptcy’s guidance says the same thing in blunter terms. What a trustee in sequestration does covers the work that carries on.

Six things, and the contribution order is the one that surprises people most. None of them stops because a certificate has been granted.

The list, with its provisions

The contribution order is the big one

Section 93(2) states that the requirement to pay the debtor’s contribution applies irrespective of the debtor’s discharge.

It normally runs for 48 months, which is longer than the twelve months to discharge. The payments carry on after you are discharged.

So a person discharged at twelve months can have around three years of payments still ahead. How a debtor contribution order is calculated sets out the method and the review rights.

The debts that were never covered

Section 145(3) lists what survives. Fines and other court penalties, debts obtained by fraud, and aliment or a periodical allowance payable on divorce are not written off.

Student loans are not written off either, by a different route. Section 145(7) leaves the student loan regulations untouched rather than listing the debt as an exception.

Section 145(5) separately preserves a secured creditor’s right to enforce a security, so a mortgage over your house is unaffected by the discharge of your personal obligation.

Each category is worked through in which debts are not written off.

And a duty that was designed to outlive it

Section 215 requires you to take every practicable step needed to let the trustee perform the trustee’s functions, and section 215(6) says debtor there includes a debtor discharged under the Act.

It is a separate event, at a later date, about something else entirely. Yours is about your debts and the trustee’s is about the administration of the estate.

Three events people merge into one

The trustee’s discharge comes under sections 148 to 151, once the estate has been dealt with. It is not tied to your twelve months.

Why the timing matters to you

The Accountant in Bankruptcy’s debtor guide says details of your bankruptcy remain on the Register of Insolvencies for one year after your trustee obtained their discharge.

So the register entry is tied to that later date rather than to your own, and no statutory period exists at all. Whether your sequestration is public sets out what each source says.

The post-discharge credit conditions belong to one route only

Section 146 applies where a debtor is discharged under section 140, which is the Minimal Asset Process. A full administration discharge under section 137 or 138 does not carry it.

For six months from the date of discharge you must tell anyone providing you with credit that you are required to comply with the section 146 conditions, before obtaining credit of £2,000 or more, or any amount at all while you owe £1,000 or more.

A first failure to comply extends the restriction period from six months to twelve. The offence arises only on a further failure during that extended period.

Section 146 has been in force since 30 November 2016 and neither of those figures has been changed since. They are not the same rule as the disclosure duty that runs while you are undischarged.

Yes, and the machinery for it is a discretion rather than a set of rules. What you will read elsewhere as categories is the Accountant in Bankruptcy’s own guidance.

The statutory position

Sections 137 and 138 confer a power exercisable at any time after twelve months, with review and appeal under section 139. Section 141 deals with deferral where the debtor cannot be traced.

There is no provision setting out grounds of refusal. The decision is made on the trustee’s report and on any representations made about it.

What the guidance adds, and what it is

The categories the Accountant in Bankruptcy uses when it defers a discharge come from its own notes for guidance rather than from the Act.

Those categories are worth knowing about because they describe how the decision is taken in practice. They are not a statutory test and should never be given a section number.

What actually helps

Paying the contribution, answering the trustee and completing anything you are asked to complete are the three things within your control. How a debtor contribution order is calculated covers what to do if the payment has stopped being affordable.

There is a three-year long stop. Section 112(2) reinvests your right or interest in you at the end of three years from the date of sequestration.

It is a long stop on inaction, not a guarantee

Nine separate steps by the trustee defeat it, and the sheriff can substitute a longer period. Do not read section 112 as saying you keep your home after three years.

Ask what is happening rather than waiting

Where heritable property is still held by the estate at your discharge, ask the trustee in writing what the position is. Whether you lose your home in a sequestration deals with the whole question.

Get the certificate, then find out what is still running. Four questions cover almost everything.

The four questions to put in writing

• When does the contribution order end, counting 48 months from the date of the first payment?
• Has the trustee been discharged, and if not, what is outstanding?
• Is any heritable property still held by the estate?
• Which of my debts survived, so I know what still has to be paid?

Keep the certificate of discharge itself. Which jobs sequestration affects explains why being able to show the position is resolved is worth more than an explanation.

Two records outlast the case and they are unrelated

The register entry has no statutory period and the published practice ties it to the trustee’s discharge. How sequestration affects your credit file deals with the other record, which is held by the credit reference agencies rather than by anyone official.

What the sequestration did for you is still worth saying

An earnings arrestment ended on the date of the award and could not be started again for a debt claimable in the sequestration. What sequestration does to diligence sets that out.

Discharge is a real milestone and it does the most important job of all. It just does not close the case.