Six months after the award, automatically. Section 140(1) discharges the debtor on that date by operation of law, with nothing to apply for.

It is a date, not a decision

That is the real advantage over full administration, where discharge is a discretion exercisable at any time after twelve months. Section 140 has only two subsections and no power to defer.

You may apply to the Accountant in Bankruptcy afterwards for a certificate of discharge. That records what has already happened rather than causing it.

Your discharge and the trustee’s are different events

AiB is the trustee in every Minimal Asset Process, and the trustee’s own discharge is separate and later. That second date matters because AiB’s register practice is measured from it.

The three things that carry on

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.

The conditions in full

Notice the second threshold. The Accountant in Bankruptcy’s guide for MAP debtors gives only the £2,000 limb, so read the section rather than the summary.

They are disclosure duties, not borrowing bans

Nothing in section 146 forbids you from borrowing. What it requires is that you say where you stand before the credit is obtained.

The wording of the disclosure differs from the one that applied while you were undischarged, and whether you can get credit during a MAP sets both provisions out side by side.

Six months, and then six more

Add the six months of sequestration to the six that follow and a MAP carries twelve months of restriction in total. It is still short by the standards of formal insolvency.

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.

The structure almost every page gets wrong

Section 147(1) provides that a failure to comply makes section 146 apply as if the relevant period were the twelve months beginning with the date of discharge.

So a first failure lengthens the restriction. It is a failure inside that extended period which is an offence under section 147(2).

What that means in practice

The worst case on a first slip is another six months of the same disclosure duty. That is a materially different position from an immediate prosecution.

It is also why the section 147 sanction should never be described as automatic, whatever an English page about bankruptcy restrictions says.

Who the conditions do not reach

Section 146 applies only where a debtor is discharged under section 140, which means only a Minimal Asset Process. A full administration debtor is discharged under section 137 or 138 and never picks these up.

That is an odd result, because the shorter bankruptcy is the one carrying the tail. It is what the sections say.

The simple way to stay clear of it

Put the discharge date in writing and count six months forward. Treat the second date as the point the conditions end, and disclose before then whenever you are asking for credit.

The list in section 145(3), plus student loans by a separate route. Everything else you owed at the date of sequestration goes.

What is not written off

Student loans are not written off either, by a different route. Section 145(7) leaves the student loan regulations untouched rather than listing the debt as an exception.

That is one half of an asymmetry worth knowing. Which debts count towards the MAP debt limit covers the other half.

What discharge does do

Section 145(1) discharges you of all debts and obligations you were liable for at the date of sequestration, which is the point of the whole exercise.

Ordinary council tax arrears, credit cards and catalogue balances all fall inside that. Whether a MAP writes off all your debts works through the exceptions.

The duty that has no end date

Section 145(3)(g) preserves the section 215 duty to co-operate with the trustee, and section 215(6) applies it to a discharged debtor. AiB also asks discharged debtors to report changes in circumstances and to return a current state of affairs.

No law says. Section 200 and regulation 30 of the 2016 Regulations create the register and contain no retention period at all.

Three published answers that do not reconcile

AiB’s notes for guidance keep information until the longer of one year after the trustee’s discharge, one year after a recall, or one year after a restrictions period ends.

mygov.scot says details stay for at least five years from the date of bankruptcy, and for a MAP specifically for 18 months from that date.

AiB’s own debtor guide gives a third version, one year after the trustee obtained their discharge. None of the three is a statutory period and they do not fit together.

What is in the entry, which matters more

AiB’s own appendix lists every field held, including your home address, date of birth, occupation and the level of debt in your statement of affairs.

Section 200(7) requires the register to be available for inspection, and regulation 30 lets information be withheld where inclusion would jeopardise someone’s safety.

How long a MAP stays on the register goes through each published figure and where it comes from.

No statute, no statutory instrument and no rule of the regulator sets six years. mygov.scot reports that bankruptcy can stay on a credit file for at least six years, and that is a report of practice.

Who actually sets it

The credit reference agencies publish their own retention schedules and they differ from each other. The industry agreement behind them has been run by the Credit Information Governance Body since 31 May 2026.

So any page attributing the Principles of Reciprocity to the Steering Committee on Reciprocity is out of date.

The register and the file are unrelated

Neither one sets the other. The register entry is normally gone long before the credit file entry, and lenders work from the file.

mygov.scot says bankruptcy can stay on a credit file for at least six years, and the three agencies publish different retention schedules. How long a MAP stays on your credit file deals with the whole question.

Yes, and it is the only thing that lengthens a MAP materially. Section 159(2) sets two to five years for an order made by AiB and five to fifteen for one made by the sheriff.

How one is made, and when

Section 155 requires AiB to notify you of a proposed order and to take your representations into account before making it.

The window is normally the sequestration itself, which in a MAP is six months. After that AiB needs the sheriff’s permission.

What an order carries, and what it does not

The credit restrictions are not automatic. Section 157(1) lets the decision maker specify that they apply, which means some orders carry them and some do not.

AiB says its registrations team requests the £2,000 and £1,000 thresholds on all occasions, which is practice rather than the effect of section 157 itself.

The grounds include carrying on any gambling, speculation or extravagance that may have materially contributed to the sequestration.

Scotland has orders only

There is no such thing as a bankruptcy restrictions undertaking in Scotland. The 2016 Act provides for orders and interim orders only, and undertakings belong to the law of England and Wales.

An order can also be revoked or varied on your application under section 159(3), with 28 days for AiB to decide and 14 days to appeal to the sheriff.

Jobs are the other thing an order reaches, covered at whether a MAP affects your job or licence, and the reapplication bars are at when you can apply again.

The one thing an order does not change

It does not undo your discharge. The debts written off at six months stay written off whatever restrictions follow.

The whole timeline in one place