The damage comes from the numbers. Someone in Glasgow reads a Debt Relief Order page written for Manchester and works out their eligibility from limits that are twice the Scottish ones.

What follows is both sets of figures with the dates they came into force, and the four mistakes that cost readers the most. How a MAP works covers the Scottish route on its own terms.

No. gov.uk says an applicant must have lived or worked in England and Wales in the last three years, which is where the route closes for anyone reading this in Scotland.

Two schemes, not one scheme with two names

A Debt Relief Order is made by the Official Receiver on an application through an approved debt adviser. A Minimal Asset Process is an award of sequestration made by the Accountant in Bankruptcy.

gov.uk also says you cannot get a Debt Relief Order if you are bankrupt. That condition on its own shows the two are different instruments rather than the same thing under two names.

What Scotland has instead

The Minimal Asset Process is the nearest thing, and it is genuinely close in purpose. It is built for someone with almost nothing to sell and no money left at the end of the month.

Close in purpose is not the same as equivalent in law. The conditions are tighter, the limits are lower and the effect on your property is different.

Why the mix-up is so common

English pages outrank Scottish ones on general debt queries, and several of them list a Debt Relief Order as an option without saying where it applies. National Debtline runs separate Scottish guides for that reason.

A Debt Relief Order is the England and Wales route and its limits are different: debts up to £50,000, a vehicle up to £4,000 and other property up to £2,000, with surplus income of no more than £75 a month.

The two schemes side by side

Where the current figures come from

The debt limit went to £50,000 on 28 June 2024 by SI 2024/626, and the vehicle disregard went to £4,000 on the same day by SI 2024/622.

Any comparison using £30,000 for the debt limit is out of date by more than two years. Several still in circulation are.

The Scottish figures have moved too

The £25,000 ceiling in section 2(2)(b)(ii) has applied since 29 March 2021, and the same instrument left student loan debt out of the calculation.

That carve-out appears on almost no other page and it decides eligibility for graduates. Which debts count towards the MAP debt limit works through it.

The £1,000 cap on any single asset. Section 2(2)(d) has no Debt Relief Order counterpart at all, and it is the test that fails people who thought they were comfortably inside the limits.

Why the £2,000 figures being identical is a trap

Both schemes cap total assets at £2,000, which invites the assumption that the asset tests match. They do not, because Scotland adds a second test on top.

Someone with £1,800 of belongings passes the aggregate and fails the single-asset cap if one item is worth £1,200. There is no equivalent way to fail a Debt Relief Order.

The same person, the two schemes

Nothing sets out how any of this is to be valued. Section 2(4) allows valuation regulations and none has ever been made, which how assets are valued against the £2,000 limit deals with honestly.

A vehicle you reasonably require and which is worth no more than £3,000 is left out of the asset calculation altogether, under section 2(3)(b).

Two conditions in Scotland, one in England and Wales

Section 2(3)(b) attaches a reasonable requirement test to the £3,000. The Debt Relief Order rule is a straight disregard of one motor vehicle worth less than £4,000.

So a Scottish applicant has to explain why the car is needed as well as prove what it is worth. Reasonable requirement is not defined in the Act and no source gives a list of qualifying reasons.

Evidence, not an estimate

The Accountant in Bankruptcy expects a valuation from an independent recognised source. A figure you have worked out from advertisements will not do.

And the Scottish rule has a cliff edge

Above £3,000 there is no partial relief. The vehicle is counted at its full value, which breaks both asset tests at once, and whether you can keep your car in a MAP sets out how the valuation is evidenced.

The £1,000 figure that some pages give for a car belongs to a protected trust deed. It is a different route reached through different legislation.

Four figures and three institutions. Each of them appears on a page currently ranking for Scottish debt queries, and each of them will mislead you about your own position.

The imports, and what the Scottish position is

The £75 test is the worst of them

Pages ranking for Minimal Asset Process queries print a £75 monthly disposable income limit as though it were Scottish. It is the Debt Relief Order figure and nothing else.

There is no surplus income figure in section 2(2) at all. The income condition is a nil assessment under the common financial tool, or six months of prescribed payments as your only income.

Institutions do not cross the border either

There is no Official Receiver in Scotland and no county court judgment. An individual voluntary arrangement is not a Scottish remedy, and an administration order is not one either.

Sheriff officers are the Scottish enforcement office, and they work to Scottish rules. A page that asks whether a Minimal Asset Process stops bailiffs was not written for you.

The disclosure figures are Scottish too

After a MAP discharge, section 146(2) requires you to tell a lender about the conditions before taking credit of £2,000 or more, or any amount while you owe £1,000 or more.

A £500 threshold appears on several pages about Scottish bankruptcy. It is not in the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 2016 and it is not the Scottish figure, and which restrictions still apply after a MAP ends sets the Scottish duties out in full.

It sequestrates you. Section 78(1) vests the whole of your estate in the trustee at the date of sequestration, which is a transfer of ownership rather than a pause on collection.

What vesting reaches

Property you acquire after that date vests too, at the date you acquire it, with no lower limit written in. An inheritance during the six months belongs to the trustee.

If it takes your assets above £2,000, the case can leave the Minimal Asset Process altogether. The difference between a MAP and full sequestration explains what that would mean.

A moratorium is not the same thing

Scotland has a statutory moratorium of its own, and it is separate from a MAP. It gives protection against new diligence while you take advice.

A statutory moratorium lasts six months. The period was six weeks until section 23(2) of the Coronavirus (Recovery and Reform) (Scotland) Act 2022 substituted six months in section 198 of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 2016, with effect from 1 October 2022.

A statutory moratorium is the exception. It does not stop an earnings arrestment that was already running: section 197(5)(d) of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 2016 lets a creditor carry on executing an earnings arrestment, a current maintenance arrestment or a conjoined arrestment order that came into effect before the moratorium began.

The record it leaves

A MAP award goes on the Register of Insolvencies, which anyone may search. mygov.scot gives 18 months from the date of bankruptcy for a MAP entry, though no retention period appears in the Act or the regulations, and how long a MAP stays on the register explains why the published figures conflict.

And the timetable

You are discharged automatically six months after the award under section 140(1), and the section 146 conditions then run for a further six months.

Three, and all of them are Scottish. Full administration sequestration, a protected trust deed and the Debt Arrangement Scheme cover most of the ground.

Where each one fits

• Full administration sequestration has no asset ceiling and no land bar, with a minimum debt of £3,000 and discharge normally at twelve months.
• A protected trust deed needs debts of at least £5,000 and enough surplus income to fund contributions over the payment period.
• A debt payment programme under the Debt Arrangement Scheme is not insolvency, has no minimum or maximum, and freezes interest and charges.

The choice is not one to make from a web page

Each affects your credit file, and two of them appear on a public register. MAP against a trust deed runs one of the comparisons, and whether you are eligible for a MAP checks the eight conditions.

Citizens Advice Scotland, StepChange, National Debtline and Advice Direct Scotland all give this advice free. Nobody has to pay a provider to work out which Scottish route fits.