Most applications never get near it. An individual’s programme is approved under regulation 24 where creditors holding not less than nine tenths in value have consented, and a creditor who ignores the request usually counts as one who agreed.

Here is when the test applies, the twelve matters the DAS Administrator must weigh, why consent is only one of them, and what happens if a programme is refused. Our guide to how the Debt Arrangement Scheme works covers the scheme itself.

Whenever a programme cannot be approved under regulation 24. For an individual that means creditors holding more than a tenth of the debt by value have withheld consent, or a single-debt programme has drawn no reply.

The consent threshold, and its date

Not all of them. Since 4 November 2019 a programme for an individual is approved where not less than nine tenths in value of the creditors consent, under regulations 23(1)(a) and 24(1) of the Debt Arrangement Scheme (Scotland) Regulations 2011.

That threshold arrived with the Debt Arrangement Scheme (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2019, in force 4 November 2019. Programmes applied for before that date keep the old unanimous rule.

The test is nine tenths by value, not by number. A single creditor holding more than a tenth of the total can withhold consent and put the application to the fair and reasonable test.

Where deemed consent runs out

Silence counts as consent. Regulation 23(5) deems a creditor who does not respond within 21 days of the request to have consented, irrespective of any assignation of the debt.

That rule applies only to a programme providing for the payment of more than one debt. A programme covering a single debt gets no deemed consent.

Which route your application takes

Reaching nine tenths does not end the matter. Regulation 24(1) is subject to regulation 24(1A), in force since 1 April 2015, so a programme for an individual may only be approved in accordance with the Common Financial Tool.

Reaching nine tenths is not the whole story, then. Whether all your creditors have to agree sets out the consent rules in full.

Twelve matters, listed at regulation 25(2). Two of them were added on 1 April 2015 and both concern the Common Financial Tool.

The list as it now stands

Paragraphs (za) and (zb) were inserted by the 2014 amendment regulations, which is why a page listing ten factors is describing the position before April 2015.

The part almost nobody mentions

Regulation 25(2) lists the matters the DAS Administrator must have regard to, and regulation 25(3) makes that list non-exhaustive, so any other relevant factor may be weighed.

So the twelve are a floor rather than a ceiling. Anything genuinely relevant to your case can be taken into account, which cuts both ways and is worth knowing before you file.

No. The extent to which creditors have consented sits at regulation 25(2)(h) as one matter among twelve, and the regulations give it no special weight.

What an objecting creditor actually controls

The extent to which creditors have consented is one factor among them, at regulation 25(2)(h). It does not decide the question on its own.

There is no statutory list of grounds. Nothing in regulations 23, 24 or 25 restricts why a creditor may withhold consent, and nothing requires one to give a reason.

A creditor holding a large share of your debt can move the application from one route to the other, and no further. What happens when a creditor objects follows the rest of it.

Why the design works that way

A Debt Payment Programme repays every penny of the principal. A creditor refusing one is declining full repayment over time, which is a weaker position than it sounds.

A Debt Payment Programme is not an insolvency solution. You repay the debt in full, and what changes is the pressure rather than the balance.

Yes. Regulation 28 allows an approval, including approval under the fair and reasonable test, to be made subject to one or more specified conditions.

What a condition can require

The specified conditions are realising an asset and distributing the value, signing a payment instruction to an employer, or any other reasonable condition intended to secure completion.

Your home is an excepted asset, so the DAS Administrator cannot require it to be sold. Since 29 October 2018 a debtor may volunteer that condition, at their own option.

The standard conditions everyone gets

• Make the first payment within 42 days of approval, and every payment as it falls due.
• Keep paying continuing liabilities such as rent, council tax and utilities.
• Tell your continuing money adviser or the DAS Administrator about a material change of circumstances within 7 days.
• Answer a written request for information about your income, assets or liabilities within 10 days.

Those are regulation 27(2), and breaking one without reasonable cause is a ground for revocation. Why a programme is revoked covers that end of it.

Yes. Regulation 30(1)(ba) makes it incompetent to serve a charge for payment, to commence or execute diligence, or for a creditor to petition for your sequestration while your application sits in the DAS Register undetermined.

When that protection ends

It runs to approval, or 14 days after a notice of rejection is entered, or 28 days after an application for review is entered, or the entry of your withdrawal. Those dates come from regulation 30(2A), inserted by the 2015 amendment regulations with effect from 27 June 2015.

So a refusal does not expose you the same day. The 14-day tail is there to let you ask for a review.

Before the application goes in

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.

The duration sits in section 198 of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 2016, and a moratorium ends early once a programme is approved.

How a statutory moratorium protects you explains how to get one, and there is one per rolling twelve months.

The old route of intimating an intention to apply, which carried its own six weeks of protection, was revoked on 1 April 2015. Protection before an application now runs through the moratorium.

In two stages. You apply to the DAS Administrator for a review within 14 days, and only once that review is decided does an appeal lie to the sheriff under regulation 47C.

The review

The whole of Part 10 was replaced by the 2013 amendment regulations on 2 July 2013. A debtor, or a money adviser acting for them, may apply for review of a determination not to approve a programme.

The application must be in writing and made within 14 days of intimation. The DAS Administrator must carry out the review within 28 days, on the application and any written representations.

The appeal

Regulation 47C lets a debtor or a creditor appeal to the sheriff on a point of law against the review decision. It goes by summary application within 14 days of intimation.

You ask the DAS Administrator to review the decision first. Only once that review is decided does an appeal lie to the sheriff, under regulation 47C.

Regulation 47C(3) makes the sheriff’s decision final. Note that the appeal is on law, not on whether the Administrator weighed your circumstances the way you would have.

The clock, end to end

With a proposal that is accurate and sustainable. Regulation 25(2)(za) puts the Common Financial Tool at the top of the list, so the figures behind your payment are the first thing the DAS Administrator looks at.

The payment

The tool sets your contribution from surplus income, and in the Debt Arrangement Scheme you may propose a proportion of that surplus rather than all of it. How your payment is calculated goes through it.

There is no minimum monthly payment anywhere in the regulations. The Accountant in Bankruptcy’s 2025-26 annual statistics put the median monthly contribution at £260 and the median debt in a Debt Arrangement Scheme at £16,200.

The length

No maximum length applies to a programme for an individual. The five-year limit that appears on some pages belongs to Business DAS.

AiB says a programme approved in the last three financial years is expected to last between 5.1 and 6.1 years. How long a Debt Payment Programme lasts looks at what drives that.

The adviser

You cannot apply on your own. Regulation 20(2)(a) requires the application to be made by a money adviser on the debtor’s behalf.

They also know how the DAS Administrator’s own guidance on approving a programme is applied in practice.

Since 4 November 2019 a money adviser may not charge an individual a fee for Debt Arrangement Scheme work, under regulation 12(2) as substituted by SSI 2019/315.

Our Debt Arrangement Scheme page sets out how we help, and whether you need a money adviser explains who qualifies as one.