The useful part is that the whole calculation is public and mechanical. You can check it yourself in about five minutes with a payslip in front of you.

Errors run in both directions too, and an under-deduction is a different problem with a different owner. Why a wage arrestment is taking more than you expected covers the case where the figure turns out to be right.

The recurring ones are working from gross pay instead of net, using the table for the wrong pay frequency, and carrying on deducting after something should have stopped the arrestment. Band arithmetic comes a close fourth.

The four deductions that come off before the table is applied

Section 73(1) of the 1987 Act sets out what net earnings means, and it is a closed list of four items. Nothing else comes off first.

• Income tax, under section 73(1)(a).
• National Insurance, primary class 1 contributions, under section 73(1)(b).
• Pension scheme contributions, under section 73(1)(c).
• A priority child maintenance deduction from earnings order, under section 73(1)(d).

Student loan repayments, other arrestments, union dues and the employer’s own charge all come off after the deduction has been worked out, never before. What counts as net earnings for a wage arrestment sets that out in full.

Fortnightly pay is the classic grey area

There is no fortnightly table, but section 49(1)(c) says what to do: divide the net pay for the period by the number of whole weeks in it, read the weekly table against the result, and multiply back up. Section 49(2) sends an awkward interval, such as a ten-day cycle, to the daily table instead, and section 49(3) does the same for irregular intervals.

If you are paid fortnightly and the figure looks strange, ask payroll which basis they used and why. That single question settles a good many of these.

What happens to a wage arrestment if you are paid fortnightly works the subsection through with figures.

The errors in order of how often they turn up

Take your net earnings for that pay period, find the band in the table for your pay frequency, add the fixed amount to the stated percentage of the excess, and compare the answer with the payslip.

These rates were substituted into Schedule 2 of the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987 by the Diligence against Earnings (Variation) (Scotland) Regulations 2024, and they came into force on 6 April 2025.

The monthly table

The weekly table

Daily pay has a third table, with a nil band up to £24.66. The same band structure applies to all three tables, and it has done since 6 April 2025.

Three answers to check yourself against

Net pay of £1,800.00 a month gives £172.50, and £2,200.00 a month gives £252.50. Net pay of £400.00 a week gives £36.85.

Our wage arrestment calculator runs the same arithmetic on your own figures.

The pound that is not part of the deduction

The employer’s administration charge is set by section 71 of the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987 and fixed at £1.00 by regulation 3 of the Diligence against Earnings (Variation) (Scotland) Regulations 2006, with effect from 5 April 2006.

It is permissive rather than compulsory, it is charged per payment made to the creditor, and it comes off after the Schedule 2 deduction has been worked out. Note it separately when you check a payslip, because it is not part of the arrested sum.

Write to payroll. Give the pay date, your net earnings for the period, the table you applied and the deduction you calculate, and ask them to confirm theirs.

What to put in the message

• The pay date and the period it covers.
• Your net earnings for that period, after tax, National Insurance and pension.
• The table you applied and the band you think you fall in.
• Your calculation, written out in full.
• A request for their net earnings figure and the band they used.
• A request for a written reply rather than a conversation in a corridor.

Why payroll usually engages

An employer has no discretion here. Section 47(1) requires it to deduct on every pay-day, and an employer’s legal duties for a wage arrestment sets out what else it has to do.

Getting it wrong is expensive for them. Section 57(1)(a) makes an employer that fails to comply liable to the creditor for what it should have deducted, and section 57(1)(b) stops it recovering that money from the worker.

Keep every payslip from the first deduction onwards. If this ever reaches a sheriff, the payslips and your working are the evidence.

Money taken beyond the debt is recovered from the creditor rather than from your employer. Section 57(5) of the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987 makes any sum paid over in excess of the debt recoverable by the debtor from the creditor, with interest.

The creditor, not the payroll department

Section 57(4) puts a duty on the creditor to tell the employer, as soon as is reasonably practicable, once the debt has been paid, extinguished or has ceased to be enforceable by diligence. Section 57(5) then makes anything paid over beyond that recoverable from the creditor.

The Act says interest is added at the rate it specifies. No web page should give you a percentage for it, and this one will not.

The penalty where the creditor did not tell your employer to stop

Section 57(6) goes further where the creditor failed to tell the employer to stop. The sheriff can order the creditor to pay up to twice the excess.

That is a real sanction rather than a formality, and it is worth naming in your letter. It exists because the creditor is the only party that knows when the debt is finished.

Where your employer is and is not in the frame

The employer is protected in the meantime by section 69(5) until the position is intimated to it, and section 69(4) ends any claim against the employer after a year.

So raise it quickly. The one-year longstop in section 69(4) runs from the date the deduction was made or ought to have been made, and whether you can get a refund if your employer over-deducted goes through the recovery route in detail.

Nothing is written off. The balance stays exactly where it was, the arrestment simply runs for longer, and your employer remains liable to the creditor for the sums it should have taken.

This one catches people out, because a small deduction feels like a quiet piece of luck. It is really a slower version of the same total.

The under-deduction that is not an error at all

Section 69(2) gives the employer a grace period. Where a pay-day falls within seven days of the schedule being served, the employer is entitled, but not required, to operate the arrestment that day.

Section 69(3) then closes the door on catching up. Where the employer skips a pay-day under that grace period, it may not add anything in respect of that pay-day to a later deduction.

So a first payslip with nothing on it is often correct, and a later payslip carrying a double deduction to make up for it is not. Query the second, not the first.

Where a nil deduction is simply the right answer

Net earnings of £749 in a month produce nothing, because they sit inside the nil band, and the same happens on a quiet week under £172.61. The protected earnings limits for a wage arrestment covers the thresholds.

A nil deduction does not cancel the arrestment. It stays in force and resumes on its own the first time your earnings rise again.

Section 50(3) of the 1987 Act lets the sheriff make an order determining any dispute as to the operation of an earnings arrestment. The application is on Form 33 under rule 41(1), and the employer can make it as well as you.

What the sheriff can order

Section 50(4) lets the sheriff order the reimbursement of any payment made in the operation of the arrestment which ought not to have been made, and section 50(5) adds interest from a date the sheriff sets. The Scottish Courts and Tribunals Service can tell you which sheriff court takes the application.

Applying the wrong table, or working from gross rather than net earnings, is precisely a dispute about operation. That is what the subsection exists for.

The other half of section 50

Section 50(1) covers a different problem. It is an application for an order declaring that the arrestment is invalid or has ceased to have effect, on Form 32 under rule 40(1), and that order is not subject to appeal.

Use that one where the arrestment should not have been running at all. Whether there is a time limit for challenging a wage arrestment covers the timing of both applications.

What section 50 will not do

It has no affordability ground. Section 46(2) abolished the old rule exempting a reasonable amount for subsistence and replaced it with the fixed bands, so a sheriff cannot reduce a Schedule 2 deduction because you cannot live on what is left.

The unduly harsh test in sections 73Q and 73R reaches arrestments over funds and moveable property, not wages. Get advice before applying, because a free debt adviser can tell you quickly whether you have an operation dispute or an affordability problem wearing its coat.

They can fix the balance and the paperwork. They cannot recalculate your payslip, because the arithmetic belongs to whoever performed it.

Split the query before you send it

Anything about the debt, the expenses or how much is still outstanding goes to the creditor or to the sheriff officer firm named on the paperwork.

Anything about net earnings, tables, bands and pay frequency goes to payroll. Sending both halves to both parties is how a fortnight disappears.

When the arrestment should have stopped altogether

If money kept coming off after a debt payment programme was approved, after sequestration or a Minimal Asset Process award, or after a trust deed became protected, that is not a calculation error. What happens to money already taken when a wage arrestment stops covers what follows.

Tell payroll and the creditor together, with the date and the reference for the formal step, and consider whether the Debt Arrangement Scheme or another route is the real answer if the figure turns out to be right.