No creditor has to accept a plan and none has to give a reason, which whether creditors have to accept sets out.

In Scotland the question that follows is what enforcement actually looks like, and how far a plan holds it back. The answer to the second half is that it does not.

Nothing requires a creditor to give a reason, and no published source records why they refuse. What you can act on is the part of the decision that is in your control.

The two things in your control

Whether the offer is supported by a current budget, and whether every eligible debt is in the list so that no creditor can say another is being paid more generously. Both are answerable with better paperwork.

Including every eligible debt removes the second of them, and which debts can go into a plan sets out what should be in the list.

Policy is the reason nobody can predict

Nothing published records which creditors deal with plan providers and which do not, and nothing in the rules controls the choice. It is a commercial decision each of them makes for itself.

It also means a refusal says little about your own circumstances. The same offer can be accepted by four creditors and refused by the fifth.

The quality of the statement matters

CONC 8.3.2 is a rule about the advice a firm gives and the action it takes for you, and CONC 8.3.1, also a rule, requires pre-contract information in a durable medium.

Read the statement before it is sent. A refusal based on a figure that is simply wrong is the easiest kind to fix.

And no reason is required

National Debtline’s Scottish guidance says a debt management company cannot force creditors to accept offers, and there is no appeal because there is nobody to appeal to.

No. There is no vote and no majority to lose, because each creditor decides separately.

Five agreements and one account being paid anyway

A plan with six creditors and one refusal is still a plan. That account carries on receiving its share, and the money is still applied to the balance.

StepChange’s own client agreement is candid about the limits, warning that creditors may continue collection activity and that the charity cannot prevent it.

Nothing was agreed collectively in the first place

A plan is a set of separate arrangements that happen to be administered together. Losing one of them changes that account and nothing else.

Your provider has to keep you informed

CONC 8.8.1 is a rule, and it covers telling you the outcome of dealings with each creditor, including where one refused to freeze interest or charges accruing.

Ask for the refusal itself rather than a summary of it. The wording tells you whether the objection is to the figures or to the arrangement.

What it does change

The projection you were given assumed agreement, so the end date moves. How long a plan lasts explains why the term is a projection rather than a promise.

A plan does not stop enforcement. It has no statutory effect on diligence at all.

The realistic list

On a sale, CONC 6.5.2 is a rule requiring the firm the rights are assigned to arrange for notice to be given to you, and whether creditors can sell your debt covers what changes.

What it cannot do

It cannot take money from your wages without a decree or a summary warrant behind it, and the earlier steps still have to be completed. Enforcement in Scotland runs in a fixed order.

It also cannot add charges the original agreement never allowed for. Ask for a statement showing exactly what has been added to the account and when it was added.

It can also do nothing at all

Nothing obliges a creditor to escalate any more than it obliges one to agree in the first place. A refusal is a decision not to be bound, not a decision to act.

Nothing stops it. No creditor has to freeze interest because you are on a plan, and one that has refused the arrangement has not agreed to anything about charges either.

Nothing requires a freeze

No creditor has to freeze interest because you are on a debt management plan. No statute requires it and no Financial Conduct Authority rule requires it.

CONC 7.3.4 is a rule requiring forbearance and due consideration, and suspending, reducing, waiving or cancelling interest is the first example in CONC 7.3.5, which is guidance.

The consequence is arithmetic

Part of every payment to that creditor goes on new interest, so the balance falls more slowly than the projection suggested. Whether a plan freezes interest sets out what the rules do and do not require.

Ask for the balance in writing

A written statement showing the payments received and the charges added tells you whether the account is moving at all. It is also what a complaint is built on.

Compare that figure with the balance a year earlier. Where it has barely moved, the plan is not dealing with that debt.

Complaining about it

Complain to the creditor about how it has treated you, and then to the Financial Ombudsman Service if the answer does not deal with the point.

What to do when a creditor will not freeze interest sets out what a complaint should actually say.

The ordinary Scottish diligences, once a creditor has decree. StepChange says a plan is not based on Government legislation, so it does not protect you from legal action.

The sequence

On an ordinary court decree the position is settled. Section 90(1) of the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987 makes a charge for payment, served and expired unpaid, a precondition of an earnings arrestment, and section 90(3) sets the period at 14 days in the United Kingdom.

What a charge for payment is covers the document itself, and whether creditors can still take court action covers proceedings.

Nothing happens overnight

Each of those steps takes time and each one is a chance to act. A refusal letter is not a sheriff officer at the door.

Council tax skips the court action

A council applies for a summary warrant instead, and our council tax debt advice page sets out what follows.

And a plan reaches none of it

Nothing in Scots law attaches any consequence to a debt management plan. Whether a plan stops a wage arrestment is the page that deals with the consequence most people are worried about.

Fix what can be fixed, record what cannot, and get the statutory options compared. A refusal is information rather than a verdict.

The options in order

On a time to pay order, section 9(2)(a) of the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987 says the sheriff shall make an order recalling any existing earnings arrestment, and what a time to pay order is sets out the application.

Get the timeline down on paper

Note when the offer went out, when the refusal came back and what it said. That single page is what a money adviser will work from.

Keep paying while you sort it out

Money paid reduces the balance whether or not the creditor agreed anything. Stopping gives a refusing creditor a reason to escalate.

When the refusing creditor is a large part of what you owe. Under the Debt Arrangement Scheme a programme is approved where creditors holding nine tenths in value consent, a test in force since 4 November 2019, so one refusal need not decide anything.

One refusal against nine tenths in value

On a plan a single creditor can stay outside the arrangement for as long as it likes. In the scheme the same creditor is one voice measured against the value of the whole debt.

What the statutory route does that a plan cannot

An objection does not end the application. Where approval cannot be given under regulation 24, regulation 25(1) requires the DAS Administrator to approve a programme that is fair and reasonable.

Approval also freezes interest and recalls an arrestment of your income, which the difference between the two routes sets out in full.

The arithmetic that decides it

Work out what the refusing creditor holds as a share of the total. Where that share is large, the plan is dealing with the smaller half of the problem.

The signs worth acting on

• A refusing creditor holding most of the debt.
• Interest that is cancelling out what you pay each month.
• A charge for payment, or money already leaving your wages.
• A projected end date that keeps moving further away.

Where to get it looked at free

Citizens Advice Scotland, StepChange, National Debtline and Advice Direct Scotland all do this at no charge. When to move to a statutory solution and National Debtline’s Scottish guide are both written for this jurisdiction.