Twelve months after the award in a full administration case, and six months in a Minimal Asset Process under section 140(1).

The word that separates them

Section 140(1) says a Minimal Asset Process debtor is discharged on the date six months after the award. Nobody has to decide anything and there is nothing to apply for.

Sections 137, 138 and 140 have all been in force since 30 November 2016. The periods in them are the periods that apply today.

Sections 137(2) and 138(2) are in identical terms to each other, and both use may. The Accountant in Bankruptcy may discharge you at any time after the twelve-month date.

How long a Minimal Asset Process lasts covers the shorter route in full.

Why the distinction is worth knowing

A power exercised at a date is not the same as a date arriving. If nothing is decided, nothing happens to your status.

In practice most cases are discharged at or shortly after twelve months. The point is that the twelve months opens the door rather than closing the case.

The machinery in one table

Note the ten-month point. The trustee’s report goes in well before the twelve months, and everyone who receives it has 28 days to respond.

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.

What the decision looks at

The trustee’s report is what the Accountant in Bankruptcy works from. Whether you paid the contribution, co-operated and disclosed everything are the recurring themes.

A discharge granted does not take effect for a further 14 days, and section 139 provides a review and an appeal where the decision goes against you.

The deferral categories are guidance, not law

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

Refused for a year, refused until the end of the contribution period and refused indefinitely are the Accountant in Bankruptcy’s own categories. The statutory position is a discretion exercisable at any time after twelve months, with a review and an appeal.

That distinction matters if a decision goes against you. A category in internal guidance is not a rule you have breached.

It matters in the other direction too. Guidance can be revised without any change in the law, so a category quoted on a page written two years ago proves nothing about today.

Your contribution order, the trustee’s administration and the public record. Section 93(2) says the requirement to pay applies irrespective of your discharge.

Four things that outlast the twelve months

The contribution period in section 91(2)(a) is 48 months beginning with the date of the first payment, which is why payments routinely run three years past a discharge.

How a contribution is calculated explains the amount, and whether discharge ends everything deals with the whole question of what survives it.

The debts that are never discharged

Section 145(3) is a short and closed list, and which debts are not written off goes through it.

Student loans are not in that list at all. They survive by a different route, because section 145(7) leaves the student loan regulations untouched.

Longer than you do, in most cases. Your discharge and the trustee’s discharge are separate events with separate procedures.

Why the case stays open

The estate remains vested in the trustee until the administration is complete. A property to sell or a contribution order running its full term keeps a trustee in office for years.

The trustee’s own discharge comes under sections 148 to 151, after the final division of the estate. What a trustee does sets out the work in between.

What the trustee is still doing

Realising property, dealing with claims and distributing what there is to distribute. None of that is affected by whether you personally have been discharged.

It also means correspondence continues after your discharge certificate arrives. That surprises people who expected the twelve months to close everything.

This is the clock the market misses

Most pages stop at twelve months and the credit file. The trustee’s period in office is what actually keeps a case live, and it has no fixed length.

It also matters to the family home, because section 112(2) runs for three years from the date of sequestration rather than from your discharge.

There is no statutory answer to either. Neither the Act nor the regulations set a retention period for the Register of Insolvencies, and no law sets one for a credit file.

Who publishes what

mygov.scot and the Accountant in Bankruptcy’s own debtor guide give different answers, and neither is a statutory period.

Whether your sequestration is public sets out what the register holds, and how it affects your credit file explains what actually sets the six years.

What you can do about each

There is no general right to early removal from the register, though regulation 30(2) allows information to be left out where publishing it would put someone at risk of violence or jeopardise anyone’s safety or welfare.

The credit file is different, because you have statutory rights over the accuracy of what it holds.

Check the file rather than assume it. An entry that is still there long after the agency’s own published period is something you can raise with them.

The two records are unrelated

The register and the credit file are kept by different bodies under different rules, and neither period sets the other. A page that explains the six years by reference to the register has merged two separate things.

Yes, and there is a route to challenge it. Section 139 provides for a review of the decision and then an appeal to the sheriff.

What tends to be behind a deferral

Non-payment of the contribution and non-co-operation with the trustee are the themes in the Accountant in Bankruptcy’s published guidance. Neither is a statutory ground with a fixed consequence.

Where a debtor cannot be traced, section 141 deals with deferral separately. That is a different situation from a refusal on conduct.

What to do if a discharge is deferred

Ask what the trustee’s report said and on what evidence. A review under section 139 is a process rather than a plea, and there is an appeal to the sheriff after it.

A free money adviser can help you put a review together. The deadlines are short, so it is worth acting on the notification rather than after it.

A bankruptcy restrictions order runs on its own clock

Section 159(2) gives an order made by the Accountant in Bankruptcy a length of between two and five years, and one made by the sheriff between five and fifteen.

There is no such thing as a bankruptcy restrictions undertaking in Scotland. The 2016 Act provides for orders and interim orders only, and undertakings belong to the law of England and Wales.

An order is separate from your discharge and can outlast it by years. Which jobs and professions sequestration affects covers what that means in practice.

Twelve months to a discharge, up to 48 months of payments, and a trustee in office until the estate is dealt with. The Minimal Asset Process is a much shorter picture.

The two routes side by side

After a Minimal Asset Process discharge there are six further months of statutory conditions. How long a Minimal Asset Process lasts covers that period.

Where the two routes really differ

A Minimal Asset Process is short by design, with no contribution and a fixed six-month discharge. Full administration is longer because there is something to administer.

The length of a full administration case is set by the estate and the contribution rather than by any single deadline. That is why two cases awarded on the same day can close years apart.

What that means for planning

Treat twelve months as the date the debts are dealt with rather than the date sequestration leaves your life. National Debtline’s bankruptcy guide and a free money adviser will both say the same.

The contribution and the records are the parts that shape the years afterwards, and what a sequestration costs prices them.