It is not a niche route. In 2025-26 the Accountant in Bankruptcy recorded that around 66.3 per cent of bankruptcies awarded through debtor applications were Minimal Asset Process cases.

Both are formal insolvency and both appear on the same public register, so neither is the discreet option. What Minimal Asset Process bankruptcy is and what a protected trust deed is cover each one on its own.

MAP exists for people whose income leaves nothing to contribute and whose possessions are worth very little. A trust deed exists for people who can pay something every month but not enough to clear the balance.

The test at the front of MAP

There are two ways in. Either the common financial tool shows you can pay nothing towards your debts, or you have been receiving certain benefits for at least six months.

The benefits route only works if those payments are your only income. Someone receiving universal credit alongside wages goes through the common financial tool assessment instead.

That condition is easy to miss and it decides real cases. It sits in the regulations rather than the Act, and the Accountant in Bankruptcy’s debtor guide is the place to check it against your own position.

A trust deed is the opposite case

Section 168 requires the deed to state that you will pay contributions from income during the payment period. Without surplus income there is nothing for a deed to work with.

A deed built on a contribution you cannot sustain risks failing with fees already taken and debts still outstanding. How much a trust deed costs sets out where the money goes.

The debt levels barely overlap

MAP caps total debts including interest at £25,000, and a trust deed sets a floor of £5,000 with no ceiling at all. Between those two figures both are technically possible.

Above £25,000 MAP is out, and below £5,000 a trust deed is out. There has been no lower limit on MAP debts since 6 February 2023, so older guidance quoting £1,500 is out of date.

Every condition has to be met, not just the two headline figures. Section 2(2) sets out eight, and most refusals turn on the ones nobody quotes.

All eight, with the provision each comes from

The £25,000 ceiling has applied since 29 March 2021, under SSI 2021/148. It is not temporary, whatever a page describing it as a coronavirus measure says.

The two repeat bars are different lengths

Ten years must have passed since any previous MAP, and five years since any other award of sequestration.

Both are measured backwards from the day you apply, not from discharge. Sections 2(2)(g) and 2(2)(h) ask whether an award was made in the period ending on the day before the new application.

If you are refused

A refusal can be reviewed, and the review decision appealed to the sheriff, under the Act. The provision is section 27(5) to (8), and a right of review and appeal does exist despite what some guidance implies.

MAP gives automatic discharge after six months and asks for no contribution. A trust deed commits you to a 48-month payment period and a discharge that has to be applied for.

Side by side

There is no fee to apply for Minimal Asset Process bankruptcy. The fee that used to apply was removed on 6 February 2023, and the Accountant in Bankruptcy’s own guidance lists no application fee.

A trust deed has no separate application fee either, because the trustee’s fees come out of your contributions.

Full administration sequestration carries a £150 application fee, and that is waived for people receiving certain benefits or assessed as having no surplus income.

Six months against four years

That is the single biggest practical difference. A trust deed is a four-year commitment, and after two consecutive missed contributions the trustee may require a payment instruction to your employer, which how long a trust deed lasts covers.

A MAP has no payment for an employer to deduct, because a nil contribution is the entry test. Any page describing an income payment order in a MAP is describing something else.

The other £3,000 in the same section

Full administration sequestration has a minimum debt of £3,000 under section 2(8)(a). That figure is unrelated to the vehicle disregard, which happens to use the same number.

So if your debts are under £25,000 but the asset tests rule MAP out, full administration is the route with the £3,000 floor. A trust deed against sequestration compares that one.

MAP is closed to anyone who owns land and to anyone with a single asset worth more than £1,000. A trust deed conveys your estate to the trustee, with a defined list of exceptions.

The vehicle figures, which almost every page merges

The £3,000 belongs to a different test. Section 2(3)(b) of the 2016 Act opens with the words for the purposes of subsection (2)(c) and (d), which is Minimal Asset Process eligibility, and it has been generalised into advice about trust deeds where it does not apply.

The trust deed chain runs through section 11(1)(b) of the Debt Arrangement and Attachment (Scotland) Act 2002, and whether you will lose your car in a trust deed sets it out in full.

The home

You must not own land. Section 2(2)(e) rules out a MAP for anyone who does, whatever it is worth.

If you own property the comparison ends there, and whether you will lose your home in a trust deed covers the trust deed side.

A trust deed can accommodate a home, but only by negotiation before the deed is protected. There is no equivalent of the sequestration three-year family home rule.

Everything else you own

Your assets must be worth no more than £2,000 in total under section 2(2)(c), and no single item may be worth more than £1,000 under section 2(2)(d).

All assets must be disclosed in a trust deed whether or not the trustee intends to sell them. Deliberate non-disclosure is treated seriously by the Accountant in Bankruptcy in either route.

The conditions in section 2(2) refer only to an award of sequestration, and a protected trust deed is not one. No published guidance addresses the point either way, so ask your money adviser before relying on it.

What the statute actually says

The two repeat bars in section 2(2)(g) and (h) are keyed to an award of sequestration, and a protected trust deed is not one.

The drafter dealt with trust deeds expressly elsewhere in the same section, which strengthens the reading. That is construction rather than authority.

The caveat that travels with it

A trust deed that converts into sequestration produces an award, and that award does engage the five-year bar. What happens if your trust deed fails sets out how that happens.

So ask a money adviser before relying on the point. It is the bar readers most often ask about and the one no published guidance addresses either way.

Both go on the Register of Insolvencies, so the shorter procedure does not mean a shorter record. What differs is how long you are inside it and what restrictions follow.

After a MAP discharge

The Accountant in Bankruptcy’s debtor guide states that for six months after discharge you cannot borrow more than £2,000, alone or jointly, without disclosing the bankruptcy, and cannot engage in business without meeting specified criteria.

That is a disclosure duty, not a ban on credit. Any page telling you that you cannot apply for credit at all for six months has garbled it.

Restrictions orders

The 2016 Act provides for bankruptcy restrictions orders only. Undertakings belonged to the 1985 Act regime and did not survive into the current one.

There is no restrictions regime equivalent for a protected trust deed at all. Part 13 of the 2016 Act applies to sequestration.

The credit position

mygov.scot puts the trust deed credit file effect at six years from when the deed begins, and National Debtline records that credit reference agencies hold bankruptcy information for six years. Whether trust deed providers are regulated covers who is accountable for the advice you get about either.

If you qualify for MAP it is usually the shorter route. A trust deed becomes the realistic option when your debts exceed £25,000, you own property, or you have surplus income that rules MAP out.

Signs MAP is the right fit

• Your total debts including interest sit at or below £25,000.
• The common financial tool shows no contribution, or prescribed payments are your only income.
• You own no land, and nothing you own is worth more than £1,000.
• You have not had a MAP award in 10 years or another sequestration in 5.

Signs a trust deed is worth discussing

• Your debts run well beyond the £25,000 ceiling.
• You own a home and want to try to protect it by agreement.
• You have surplus income that could fund a contribution for four years.

And a third option that is neither

If you can repay the balance over a period you can live with, the Debt Arrangement Scheme avoids insolvency altogether. A trust deed against the scheme sets that comparison out.

If wages are already being deducted, say so at the first conversation. A MAP stops an earnings arrestment on the date of sequestration, and a trust deed waits for the date of protection, which our trust deed page explains.