The provision that answers it is section 183 of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 2016, in force since 30 November 2016, and it is a short exhaustive list.

There is also a remedy in the Act that no page selling a trust deed will print. You can ask the Accountant in Bankruptcy to audit your own trustee’s fees.

Three things and no more. Section 183(1) says the trustee is entitled to remuneration consisting only of a fixed fee, an additional fee based on a percentage of the total assets and contributions realised, and outlays.

The word the subsection turns on

The list in section 183(1) is introduced by the word only, so it is exhaustive rather than illustrative.

Anything a trustee charges has to fit one of the three heads. That is a useful test to apply to a fee schedule you have been handed.

The three heads, and the two limits on outlays

The pre-grant restriction is worth reading twice. AiB’s guidance for trustees says the trustee may not claim as an outlay the cost of any work undertaken before the trust deed was granted, whenever the invoice for it is submitted.

The single exception is on the face of the Act, at section 183(1)(c)(ii). It is one valuation of heritable estate, and nothing else.

Your trustee decides, and there is no statutory scale. The figures are written on Form 3 Part 1, circulated to creditors during the five week objection period, and submitted to AiB with Part 2 when the deed is presented for protection.

No creditor approval is needed to set it

That surprises people. Creditors see the numbers, and their only lever is the objection test in section 170(2), not an approval vote on the fee.

Protection is prevented only where a majority in number, or creditors holding no fewer than one third in value, object in writing inside the five weeks. How many creditors have to agree to a trust deed sets out why that is an objection test.

Increasing the fixed fee is a different matter

Section 183(2) allows an increase only in the event of unforeseen circumstances, and only with approval by a majority in value of the notified creditors or by AiB. Section 183(3) and (4) set out AiB’s test and let AiB determine the amount of any increase.

AiB’s test is narrow. The increase must be required for work not foreseen when the Form 3 was submitted, and a majority in value of notified creditors must not have refused it.

What you should do with that

Ask to see the Form 3 fee entries before you sign, in writing. It is the single most useful request in this whole process and it costs you nothing to make.

No. The fees are paid out of the contributions and realisations rather than billed to you, and the dividend to creditors is what is left after them.

Where the money goes in order

Section 176 provides for a dividend where funds are sufficient, after fees, outlays and a contingency allowance, to yield at least 5 pence in the £. Fees therefore come off before creditors see anything.

The Accountant in Bankruptcy’s protected trust deed information document, the document your trustee has to give you before you sign, puts it in one line: your trustee will charge fees for managing the arrangement, and those fees come from your monthly payments.

Why that framing cuts both ways

Nothing extra leaves your bank account, which is the reassuring half. The money was still yours, and every pound of fee is a pound that does not reach a creditor.

That is the half creditors take an interest in, and it is why the anticipated dividend goes in the pack. How much debt you can write off with a trust deed deals with what creditors actually receive.

The line at the end that people miss

AiB’s guidance provides for a surplus to revert to you. Where funds remain after remuneration and all valid claims, and every creditor entitled to claim has claimed or declined after an appropriate reminder, the balance comes back.

Four fixed fees and one percentage, all published. They are set by the Bankruptcy Fees (Scotland) Regulations 2018 and they come out of the money you pay in, like the trustee’s own remuneration.

The published figures

Those are in the schedule to the Bankruptcy Fees (Scotland) Regulations 2018, Part 2, items 8 and 9.

The supervision fee moved from £100.00 to £120.00 by regulation 8 of the Protected Trust Deeds (Miscellaneous Amendment) (Scotland) Regulations 2024, with effect from 1 July 2024, for any supervision period ending on or after that date.

Two details behind the table

The electronic and non-electronic notice fees are £40.00 and £100.00 for the same job. A trustee who does not use AiB’s electronic service costs the estate £60.00 more.

The same 2024 regulation also inserted a rule that no fee is payable to AiB where AiB itself becomes the trustee under section 186A. That happens where no replacement trustee can be found.

Ask the Accountant in Bankruptcy to audit them. Paragraph 1 of schedule 4 lets the debtor personally, as well as the trustee or any creditor, have the trustee’s accounts audited and the remuneration fixed by AiB, at any time before the final distribution.

The right is yours, not just your creditors’

The words of schedule 4 paragraph 1 name the debtor first, and the right applies whether or not the trust deed makes its own provision for auditing and whether or not the trustee and creditors have agreed something.

Paragraph 2 lets AiB audit the accounts and fix the remuneration at any time of its own accord. Section 183(8) gives AiB the same power over the trustee’s outlays.

What it costs and who pays

The audit itself carries AiB’s 5% fee from the table above. Section 183(7) entitles the trustee to recover that audit fee from the estate at the prescribed rate.

So an audit reduces what reaches creditors as well as testing the fee. Asking the question first in writing, and asking for the Form 3 figures, is usually the cheaper route.

Where else to take a complaint

AiB supervises how trustees perform their statutory functions under section 200 and can issue binding directions on the administration of the trust under section 179, which a trustee has 30 days to comply with. AiB’s Notes for Guidance set out how it expects trustees to handle fees.

Trustees are licensed insolvency practitioners authorised by a recognised professional body. What the published sources set out is AiB’s supervisory role, not a separate complaints route through that body.

Not the trust deed, ahead of your creditors. Section 183(6) provides that any debt due to a third party for work done before the granting of the trust deed does not rank higher than any other creditor’s claim.

Why that provision exists

Lead generators and advice firms sit between the public and the practitioners in this market. Section 183(6) stops the cost of that introduction being taken out of the estate first.

If such a firm is owed anything, it stands in the queue with everyone else you owe. Whether to use a free debt charity or a paid debt adviser is worth reading before you engage anyone at all.

The free route costs nothing at any stage

Citizens Advice Scotland, StepChange and National Debtline give free advice on trust deeds and on the alternatives. Only a licensed insolvency practitioner can act as trustee, but nobody has to pay for the advice that comes first.

There is no statutory price, and the only figure from an impartial source we can point you to comes from the debt charities. National Debtline puts the fees at usually about £4,000 or more, paid out of the monthly instalments or from the sale of assets.

How to read that figure

It is charity guidance rather than a statutory rate, and the National Debtline trust deeds guide carries no published date, so treat it as an order of magnitude and not as a quote.

Your own figure depends on the fixed fee your trustee sets, the percentage applied to what is realised, and the outlays. That is why the Form 3 entries matter more than any published average.

What to ask for before you sign

The costs that are not measured in money

A protected trust deed is formal insolvency and it is public. AiB’s information document puts the Register of Insolvencies entry at the deed’s duration plus twelve months after completion, and whether your trust deed appears on the Register of Insolvencies covers who can see it.

The credit file period is set by the credit reference agencies rather than by Scottish insolvency law, and their published schedules do not all say the same thing. How long a trust deed stays on your credit file sets them side by side.

Section 167(1)(b) also binds you to convey estate acquired in the four years after granting, so a windfall in that window is not yours to keep. How trust deed monthly payments are calculated explains where the monthly figure itself comes from.