I had arrears from the CMS, which at the time of entering the trust deed, was being collected by Collect and Pay, meaning I was paying a 20% premium on top of the Maintenance + Arrears repayments. My trustee was working on my behalf to remove the Deduction of Earnings order that was being deducted from my wage at work to stop the arrears repayments but in the middle of all this, my ex partner has changed the payment method to Direct Pay, meaning I now pay her direct and the 20% charge does not apply now.

But in their new calculation, CMS have included the arrears payment in the total I've to pay her per month. Can someone confirm A) I should only pay her the actual Child Maintenance amount less the arrears so that I do not break my Trust Deed and B) how does she receive the arrears payments that I'm making when paying my trust deed payments....is she now the debtor and not CMS? I ask as I believe the CMS won't update their calculation for a few months, I've been advised by my Trustee that they are terrible to deal with and they take an age to update anything and my next payment is due in a couple of weeks...

Thanks in advance!

In general terms, a Trust Deed involves you paying one affordable payment towards your debts for a period of four years. If you have any assets (e.g. a house, or car valued over £3,000), then the Trust Deed would include a provision for these (for example, additional monthly payments at the end of the term).

In terms of good resources, the Accountant in Bankruptcy (Scotland's Insolvency Service), have published this table, which gives information on Trust Deeds, Sequestration and Debt Arrangement Scheme: removed link

I'm delighted to have been added as a new expert on the forum and will be happy to provide advice and information to anyone who is currently struggling with unaffordable debts.

I started my insolvency career in the personal debt advice team for a Big 4 firm, and have since operated my own debt advice agency, before joining Quantuma as a Senior Manager, specialising in personal debts. Between myself, Kevin and Paul, I'm sure you'll be able to get the advice you need!

Thanks,

Nick Smith

There's a contact form you can fill out at the top right of the page.  I used Kevin Mapstone to handle mine and he was very good with a difficult situation I had and managed to resolve it for me.  

Best of luck and I hope you manage to get something sorted.

You can still show evidence of bills, even if they're not in your name, to help justify the level of monthly payment you pass across. This will also support in the creation of an income and expenditure statement, which is a requirement for any debt relief approach really.

Difficult to say whether a Trust Deed is the right choice without other information. Of course, you may already be aware of sequestration and the Debt Arrangement Scheme in Scotland too. If you wanted to reach out to one of our resident Insolvency Practitioners, i'm sure they could give you specific and bespoke advice, to allow you to have a think and decide on the best option for you.

Thanks

Paul