Hi Ecosse84 and welcome to the forum.

I'd suggest that you request your trustee supplies you with a copy of the original agreement. This is easily done and should help to reassure you about the agreed term of your trust deed.

Trust deeds these days run for a minimum four year period. After you've completed that four year period, your trustee may I suppose have some discretion to accept a lump sum from a third party to end the arrangement early. I'm not 100% certain on this point, so hopefully one of our insolvency experts can add their view on this here.

Hello

Thanks for the prompt reply. I have actually requested a copy of the signed paperwork by Phone and by email and both requests have been ignored.

I was in two minds to go to citizens advice but not sure if this is something they can help with, hence why I have ended up here first of all.

Hi Ecosse84.

I certainly wouldn't discourage your from contacting Citizens Advice, but we have sometimes heard that they've been reluctant to intervene once a personal insolvency is in place.

Your request for a copy is entirely reasonable, so you may wish to consider making a complaint to your trustee if it isn't provided within a reasonable period of time. Firms need to have processes in place to deal with complaints and this could lead to someone more empowered intervening to sort this out for you.

Sorry, questions questions...

Is there any sort of legislation that says I can't settle the Trust Deed early?

Like for example, As you say they are normally 4 years, Is it a case of soon as 4 years is reached, and say you have a year left, could the remaining 12 months payments be paid off in one lump sum by 3rd party?

Hi Ecosse84. Don't worry about asking questions, it's what this forum is for!

In November 2013 the legislation changed so that trust deeds could only end before four years in a very narrow range of circumstances (basically full debt, plus interest, plus fees/costs all paid).

Before that a trustee could use their discretion if a third party payment were offered to them. Some were more open to early closure than others.

It seems likely to me that your trustee could use some discretion after four years has been completed. However, I'm not 100% sure on this point so I'd suggest waiting for one of our insolvency experts to confirm or deny this point.

I guess the next issue would then be whether your trustee would choose to exercise some discretion. Having signed a five year trust deed (assuming that you did) you would have no "right" to bring it to an early close. They may or may not choose to be supportive based upon their own policies and what they feel is in the best interests of your creditors.

The legislation just says that a Protected Trust Deed must run for a minimum 48 months. Once you reach that point then I see no reason why a trustee couldn't accept a lump sum from a third party to clear the final year's payments earlier.

I agree with the comments made.

I can also see no reason why your trustee wouldn't be prepared to accept an early repayment to close the trust deed off earlier.

Thanks for the replys.

I will wing it out till Feb hits and try get them to take the last years payment as a lump some. They still cant even give me a copy of the paperwork i signed lol

Please let us know how you get on with this Ecosse84. I'm very interested to hear the response that you receive.

Hopefully you'll get those documents soon as well.