What makes it worth understanding is the sequence. There is a proposal, a four-week window to respond, a decision, and a clock that runs afterwards.

Here are the grounds, the notice you get, what happens to the frozen interest and what to do instead. How the Debt Arrangement Scheme works covers the scheme itself.

Three grounds are automatic and five are discretionary. The Accountant in Bankruptcy must revoke where bankruptcy is awarded, where a trust deed becomes protected and on the death of the debtor.

The full list

The three automatic triggers are set out in the Accountant in Bankruptcy’s guidance on revocation, which says the DAS Administrator must revoke in each case.

Who can ask for a revocation

A creditor can apply, and so can your money adviser or you. The decision itself always sits with the DAS Administrator.

Regulation 42(1) also lets the Administrator act on its own initiative, whether or not anyone has applied. So no application is needed for the process to start.

The list above is a closed one

Regulation 42(1) sets out the grounds and nothing else will do. A programme cannot be revoked for a reason that is not on it.

That is different from the application stage, where nothing restricts why a creditor may withhold consent. Revocation is the narrower power of the two.

The measure is not a count of missed payments. Regulation 42(1)(c) bites where a payment falls due and the sum unpaid on earlier payments reaches the aggregate of payments due in a period of two months.

Why the wording matters

The original 2011 text spoke of the aggregate of two such payments. It was replaced by the Debt Arrangement Scheme (Scotland) Amendment Regulations 2013, in force 2 July 2013, and the current wording deals with programmes that are not paid monthly.

On a monthly programme the practical effect is much the same. Pages that tell you it takes three missed payments are wrong on both versions.

Arrears are a ground, not a verdict

Regulation 43(1) requires the DAS Administrator to have regard to any statement made by or for you, the nature of the failure, and whether the programme will still succeed.

Regulation 43(2) adds any other factor it considers appropriate. That is why the four-week window is worth using rather than ignoring.

The break that protects the count

A short term financial crisis break under regulation 39A has its own safeguard. Regulation 39A(7) lets the deferred payment be disregarded for the breach and arrears grounds, and how a payment break works sets out both kinds of break.

A written proposal, and at least four weeks to answer it. Regulation 42(2) stops the DAS Administrator implementing a proposal until four weeks after the date notice is given.

Who is told

• You, the debtor.
• Each creditor taking part in the programme.
• Any creditor who has applied to vary the programme.
• Any continuing money adviser, or a money adviser who applied for revocation on your behalf.

Regulation 42(3) then requires a continuing money adviser to notify all participating creditors of the proposal. AiB’s guidance says the proposal states the reasons for it.

What to put in your response

Answer the reason given. If the ground is arrears, the useful material is what changed, what you have done about it and what the payments will look like from here.

A variation application is often the right answer rather than a letter. How to vary a programme when your income changes sets out the routes.

AiB’s guidance is blunt about one thing. Keep making the agreed payments while a variation is pending, because missed payments may result in the programme being revoked.

They come back. Creditors can apply interest, fees and charges to the debt again once the protection period after revocation has run, and the debts return to their own terms.

The clock, and it is statutory

Those periods sit in regulation 44A, which was inserted by the 2013 amending regulations and substituted in part in 2014. They are law rather than guidance.

Why the freeze ends

The freeze comes from the Debt Arrangement Scheme (Interest, Fees, Penalties and Other Charges) (Scotland) Regulations 2011, and it is tied to the programme. Charges cease to be owed on completion, not on revocation.

So a revoked programme is the case the freeze does not survive. Whether a Debt Arrangement Scheme freezes interest sets out how the freeze works while a programme runs.

Where revocation follows bankruptcy or a trust deed

The debts are then dealt with in the insolvency instead. AiB’s guidance says they will be included in the bankruptcy or protected trust deed, and the entry moves to the Register of Insolvencies.

Where the revocation follows a death

The period is six weeks rather than 14 days. AiB’s guidance says creditors cannot take enforcement action or reapply interest, fees and charges until those six weeks have elapsed.

Read that carefully in a joint programme. Regulation 44A(1)(a) suspends the effect of the revocation, which is not the same as giving a surviving debtor their own protection from diligence, and how a joint programme works covers what a survivor should do next.

Yes, and there is an order to it. You ask the DAS Administrator to review the decision first, and only then does an appeal to the sheriff arise.

The review

AiB’s guidance gives 14 days from notification for you, your adviser or a creditor to ask for a review. Where one is received, creditors must wait a further 28 days before enforcing or adding charges.

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.

The provision to quote

The appeal is regulation 47C, in Part 10A. Any page citing regulation 47(3)(c) is using the numbering that was replaced on 2 July 2013.

The register entry comes off 14 days after revocation, which what the DAS Register holds covers alongside what happens on completion.

Nothing in the scheme bars a fresh application. There is no minimum debt, no maximum and no waiting period written into the revocation provisions.

What revocation does not do

It does not make you bankrupt and it does not create a new debt. The balances go back to their own terms with the creditors, which is where they were before the programme.

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.

What is different the second time

A new application goes through the same route: a money adviser, creditor consent or the fair and reasonable test, and the Common Financial Tool for an individual.

AiB’s fair and reasonable assessment takes account of any previous payment break variation. It is a judgment on the whole picture.

The statutory moratorium, while you sort it out

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 period sits in section 198 of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 2016, and you get one in any 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.

Act before the arrears reach the two-month measure. The scheme has three separate ways of changing a programme, and all of them are cheaper than starting again.

The three routes

There is no longer a closed list of reasons for a payment break. National Debtline’s Scottish guide sets out the scheme in full, and what happens when a programme ends properly covers the other way out.

The list of qualifying circumstances that used to sit in regulation 37(3) was removed on 6 February 2023. Any page still printing five or seven grounds is quoting a repealed provision.

If the programme really is not going to work

That is a conversation to have with an adviser rather than a reason to stop paying. Choosing between the scheme and a trust deed and the scheme against Minimal Asset Process bankruptcy compare the alternatives.

The trade-offs in the scheme itself are set out in the disadvantages of a Debt Arrangement Scheme, and our Debt Arrangement Scheme page explains how we help.