Where you do qualify, a money adviser will normally route you to a Minimal Asset Process, because it is free, shorter and simpler. How sequestration works covers the machinery that is common to both.

What follows is the eight conditions, the cost, the length, and the point at which a case can be moved from one route to the other.

One statute, two gateways. Schedule 1 to the 2016 Act strips a Minimal Asset Process back, so creditors are notified but there are no claims, no dividends and no creditor meeting.

Side by side

Because Schedule 1 removes the creditor vote on the trustee, the Accountant in Bankruptcy is always the trustee in a Minimal Asset Process. Its own guide for MAP debtors sets out what that means in practice.

What the two routes have in common

Both produce an award of sequestration, a public entry on the Register of Insolvencies and the restrictions that go with being an undischarged bankrupt. Both vest your whole estate in a trustee.

Both also carry the four-year acquirenda window, so property you acquire afterwards can still vest. What discharge does and does not end covers the parts of a case that outlive it.

Somebody who meets all eight conditions, not two of them. Section 2(2) is a list with no discretion in it, and the single-asset cap and the land bar catch people at least as often as the headline figures.

The eight conditions

Student loan debt does not count towards the £25,000 limit. Section 2(2A), which has applied since 29 March 2021, leaves it out of the calculation.

Almost nobody publishes that. Which debts count towards the limit goes through it, and whether you are eligible runs each condition against your own figures.

The benefits route has a gate people miss

Regulation 13(2) of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Regulations 2016 applies only where the debtor has no other income than the listed payments at the date of the application.

So part-time earnings alongside universal credit take you out of that route, however long you have been on the benefit. You would need the nil-contribution route in section 2(2)(a)(i) instead.

Two things that are no longer true

No minimum debt is currently prescribed for the Minimal Asset Process. The old £1,500 floor stopped applying on 6 February 2023, though the power to set one again remains.

You cannot make a debtor application while a protected trust deed is still running. Section 172(1)(b) rules it out for as long as the deed subsists.

Nothing and £150. SSI 2023/9 removed the Minimal Asset Process application fee entirely on 6 February 2023, and full administration carries £150 with two exemptions.

The fee

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.

The application fee is £150, and it is not payable if you receive certain prescribed benefits or the common financial tool shows you have no surplus income.

These are exemptions rather than favours, and they operate where the condition is met. What sequestration costs sets out the whole figure and who pays it.

The bigger number is what comes out of your income

A debtor contribution order is made in every sequestration under section 90(1). Because a Minimal Asset Process debtor has already been assessed as requiring no contribution, the order is fixed at zero, which section 90(4) expressly permits.

A debtor contribution order is set using the common financial tool, so it is calculated from what your budget shows you can afford rather than from what you owe.

It normally runs for 48 months, which is longer than the twelve months to discharge. The payments carry on after you are discharged.

Which tool does the assessment

Regulation 15(1) names it. How a contribution is calculated works through the arithmetic.

The prescribed tool is the Common Financial Statement, under regulation 15(1) of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Regulations 2016.

Most sources name the Standard Financial Statement, which is the tool used elsewhere in the United Kingdom. Regulations that would have moved Scotland to it were drafted in 2018 and never made.

Six months against twelve, and the twelve is not a deadline. Section 140(1) discharges a Minimal Asset Process debtor automatically, while section 137(2) gives the Accountant in Bankruptcy a power exercisable at any time after twelve months.

The timetable side by side

Discharge normally comes twelve months after the award.

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.

The six months after a MAP discharge

Section 146 then applies for a further six months, so the restriction period is a year in total.

For six months from the date of discharge you must tell anyone providing you with credit that you are required to comply with the section 146 conditions, before obtaining credit of £2,000 or more, or any amount at all while you owe £1,000 or more.

A first failure to comply extends the restriction period from six months to twelve. The offence arises only on a further failure during that extended period.

Neither discharge closes the case

Discharge frees you from the debts it covers, but it does not end the sequestration. Your trustee carries on, a debtor contribution order carries on, and the estate is still being dealt with.

A student loan is the sharpest illustration of that on the MAP side. National Debtline’s Scottish bankruptcy guide covers what survives, and the asymmetry is worth stating plainly.

A student loan is left out of the £25,000 test on the way in and is still owed on the way out.

Yes, and it happens more often than people expect. Paragraph 2 of Schedule 1 lets the Accountant in Bankruptcy determine that the modifications cease to apply, which turns the case into a full administration.

The two usual triggers

Money and assets. Either you are assessed as able to make a contribution, or your total assets go above the prescribed figure.

Watch the figure. Paragraph 2(5)(a) reads £5,000 on the face of the Act, and regulation 14 prescribes £2,000 in its place, which lines up with the entry test.

What conversion changes

You lose the automatic six-month discharge and pick up a contribution period. What happens if your income improves and how a transfer to full administration works both go through it.

An inheritance arriving in month two is nobody’s fault and is not treated as misconduct. Not reporting it is a different matter, and it is a criminal offence.

Land rules a Minimal Asset Process out completely, a qualifying vehicle is disregarded and savings count in full. Section 2(3) does the disregarding, and it applies to both asset caps at once.

Where each thing lands

There is no protected amount of savings. Section 88 exempts particular articles such as clothing and tools of trade, and it does not exempt money.

The Accountant in Bankruptcy’s evidence checklist treats savings above £1,000 across all your accounts as defeating a Minimal Asset Process application. That is its practice rather than something the Act states.

Three things nothing published answers

Nothing sets out how an asset is to be valued for these limits. Section 2(4) allows valuation regulations to be made and none ever has been, so ask your money adviser how yours will be treated.

No source addresses how a jointly owned item is counted, whether at its full value or at your share of it. A joint bank account is the case most people ask about and it is not answered anywhere published.

Whether a pension counts towards the asset limits is not addressed by the Act, the regulations or the Accountant in Bankruptcy’s guidance.

That is not evasion, it is the state of the published material. How assets are valued against the £2,000 limit sets out what is and is not established.

A money adviser prepares the application and grants the certificate, and the Accountant in Bankruptcy makes the award. You cannot make a debtor application at all without money advice first.

What the adviser is actually doing

Applying section 2(2) to your figures, in order, and stopping at the first condition you fail. That is why the conversation is about evidence rather than preference.

Take a full debt list including interest, every account balance, and the dates of any previous award. How long you must wait before being sequestrated again explains why the award date matters more than the discharge date.

How common each route is

The Accountant in Bankruptcy awarded 2,976 sequestrations in 2025-26, up 19.9 per cent on the year before, made up of 2,415 debtor applications and 561 creditor petitions.

The median debt in 2025-26 was £32,100 in a full administration sequestration and £12,400 in a Minimal Asset Process case.

Where to get it done free

Citizens Advice Scotland, StepChange, National Debtline and Advice Direct Scotland all do this work at no charge, as do most council money advice teams. Whether you are eligible for a Minimal Asset Process is the question to take to them first.