That matters because people plan around the wrong date. Someone expecting to be clear at month 48 can find the trust still open, or the credit file still showing an entry two years later.

Here is each clock, what starts it, what ends it, and whether money can end it early. What a protected trust deed is covers the solution itself.

On the day you sign, not the day you are protected. Section 168(2)(a) fixes the payment period as 48 months beginning with the date on which the trust deed is granted.

That is better news than most pages let on

Protection is a separate and later event. Under section 163(2) the deed becomes protected when AiB registers it, which is six weeks or more after signature on the statutory arithmetic.

Those weeks count towards your 48 months. A page that dates the four years from protection is adding time you have already served.

Two four-year clocks, aligned on purpose

Section 167(1)(b) binds you to convey estate acquired in the four years after granting, which catches an inheritance or a windfall. It runs from the same date as the payment period.

So the two periods start together and end together on a standard deed. Most content misses that, and it is worth knowing if a legacy is on the horizon.

The date of protection matters for something else

It is the trigger for diligence. Under section 173 an earnings arrestment, a current maintenance arrestment or a conjoined arrestment order ceases to have effect on the date of protection, not on the date you signed.

The statutory steps in between give a floor of roughly six weeks and an outer limit of around eleven or twelve, which is arithmetic rather than an average. What happens between signing a trust deed and it becoming protected covers the gap.

Every clock in one place

Yes, in two quite different ways. Section 168(2)(c) allows a longer payment period where you have failed to make contributions or where you and the trustee agree, and a heritable property agreement can require payments after the 48 months entirely separately.

Extension is the standard response to a gap in payments

There is no statutory payment break in a protected trust deed. The six-month break some readers have seen described belongs to a Debtor Contribution Order in bankruptcy, and in a trust deed the relief is an extended term under section 168 with the Accountant in Bankruptcy notified under section 180.

The home agreement is the other route

Under section 175(2)(b) a trustee may require monthly payments for a period following the payment period, as part of an agreement not to realise heritable property.

So keeping the house can mean paying past the four years. What happens to the equity in your home in a trust deed sets out how that is priced.

Only in narrow circumstances, and neither of them is simply having the money. A shorter payment period needs the debts to be met in full, and early discharge needs extenuating circumstances.

The shorter payment period, and read the test carefully

Section 168(3) lets the trustee determine a shorter payment period only where, in the trustee’s opinion, payment of the contributions from income or otherwise during that period would allow distribution of the estate to meet the debts in full, including interest as at the date of granting.

In full is the whole of the constraint. The words from income or otherwise bring asset realisations into the sum, which is why a debtor with real assets can end up paying everything.

Section 168(4) works the other way for income alone. Contributions across the payment period must total less than the debt including interest, so a debtor whose only resource is income cannot by law be made to pay it all.

Early discharge for extenuating circumstances

Sections 184B and 184C, in force from 1 July 2024 under SSI 2024/198, allow an early discharge where circumstances beyond your control prevent you meeting your obligations with no reasonable prospect of recovery before the 48 months end.

The trustee notifies creditors and asks for consent, and creditors have 21 days. Where a majority in number or one third in value agree the trustee submits Form 5, and where they object the matter goes to AiB for review.

Not the way you can settle a debt management plan. There is no provision in the Act for buying your way out, and the only route that shortens the deed for money is the one that requires your debts to be met in full.

The four routes out, and none of them is a buy-out

That is a reading of what Part 14 contains and does not contain, taken from the complete section list. It supports the statement that there is no provision for a buy-out, and it does not support a claim that the Act forbids one.

Below the in-full line, everything is agreement

A discounted lump sum is a matter for your trustee and your creditors to agree, and neither is obliged to. Ask in writing what would be accepted and what it would cost, before anyone puts money on the table.

Do not read across from the Debt Arrangement Scheme, where a programme can complete on a lump sum equal to the outstanding payments. That is a different scheme under different regulations.

Where a family member is funding it

The Accountant in Bankruptcy’s guidance for trustees requires the trustee to tell creditors who the third party is, whether the arrangement is legally binding, and that non-contractual payments cannot be guaranteed.

Trustees should also not accept payments from someone who is themselves in a debt relief scheme. That catches more families than people expect.

And if there is money left at the end

AiB records that after your discharge and the final distribution, where all known creditors entitled to claim have claimed or declined after an appropriate reminder, any surplus left after remuneration and valid claims reverts to you.

It is not automatic at month 48. Your trustee applies to AiB on Form 5 with a statement that you met your obligations and co-operated, and the date of discharge is the date AiB registers that application.

Step by step, with the periods

Those are the steps under section 184 and section 186. Discharge is not automatic at month 48, and section 184 is where the steps are set out.

Refusal, and what it costs

Since 1 July 2024 a trustee cannot refuse unilaterally. The trustee applies on Form 5A under section 184A for AiB’s agreement, and if that succeeds creditors cease to be deemed to have acceded under section 172(2).

A change of circumstances that stops you paying, extenuating circumstances, and assets realising less than estimated are all listed by AiB as improper reasons to refuse. What happens if your trust deed fails covers the whole of that route.

No, and this is the distinction most pages skip. Your discharge releases you from the debts, but the trust carries on until realisation and distribution are complete and the trustee obtains their own discharge from creditors.

The trustee’s discharge is a separate application

The trustee applies to acceding creditors on Form 6 within 28 days after the final distribution, and needs the consent, actual or deemed, of a majority in value within 14 days of Form 6 being issued.

A statement of realisation and distribution then goes to AiB on Form 7. The administration documents are kept for a further 12 months.

Dividends run to their own timetable

For deeds granted on or after 1 July 2024 the first dividend period is 12 months from the grant date and subsequent periods are 3 months. A dividend is paid under section 176 only where funds are sufficient, after fees, outlays and a contingency allowance, to yield at least 5 pence in the pound.

Trustee fees and outlays come out of the contributions you make rather than being billed to you. How trust deed monthly payments are calculated explains how the figure is set.

Three things, and one of them is on a six-year clock. The trust until the trustee’s discharge, any payments agreed under a heritable property agreement, and the entry on your credit file.

The credit file is the longest of them

Six years is the figure every Scottish source gives, dated by mygov.scot from when the deed begins. How long a trust deed stays on your credit file explains why that period is credit reference agency practice rather than law.

The public register runs on a shorter and separate clock. Whether your trust deed appears on the Register of Insolvencies sets that out.

Some debts are never released at all

Section 184(6) excludes from your discharge any liability arising after the deed was granted, the liabilities listed in section 145(3), and a debt where a secured creditor agreed not to claim.

Student loans are excluded separately by section 185, which names the four enactments it covers.

If you are still deciding between the routes, which debt solution is best if you have a wage arrestment compares them, and our trust deed page sets out how we help.