Welcome to Trust-Deed.co.uk Davros.

It's possible to reduce your DAS payments if circumstances have changed. Just get in touch with your contact if this is what you'd like to do. An eight year term wouldn't be unusual.

It is also possible to change to a protected trust deed if you feel that this will now be a better fit for your circumstances and preferences.

How much can you pay each month?

How much do you owe in total?

Do you own any major assets?

The answers to these questions might help us to provide you with more analysis that you can use to weight up whether DAS or a trust deed makes the most sense now.

Hi Davros,

I understand your position here. Simply the options available to you are as follows:

1. Yes you may approach your DAS Administrator and creditors to reduce your contribution. This will require the acceptance of the creditors. However, this will result in the duration being extended. In terms of chances of this happening only 1 creditor must object when it is then passed to the Accountant in Bankruptcy to make the decision.

2. You may stop the DAS and propose to creditors a Trust Deed. An insolvency practitioner would prepare a proposal to creditors and as long as you have a net free income to contribute to it (the level will be assessed and agreed at the outset) and the dividend could be projected at over 10p in the £, and you have resided in Scotland for the last 1 year. Any assets you own will be assessed and any equity will be require to come in to the Trust Deed also. The Trust Deed will last between 36-48 months. Generally it will affect your credit rating for 6 years from the commencement of the deed.

3. The benefit of the Trust Deed is that it is an affordable payment and concluded in generally 36 months. Whereas the DAS continues until all debts are paid in full. A Trust Deed is a form of insolvency but is seen as a more positive solution than bankruptcy as you are going out your way to make a contribution to all your creditors. The lasting effects of a Sequestration are greater. A Trust Deed is less frowned upon. As long as there is nothing in your contract of employment to prevent you from enetering the Trust Deed you should be fine. The Trust Deed is also advertised in the Edinburgh Gazette which is a newspaper subscribed to by most financial institutions. Other than that there is no reason why anyone would need to know.

I hope this is of assistance and please ask if you require any further help.

Hi guys, thanks for your responses.

To answer your questions, Trust Deed Assistant, I've just done some more calculations and realistically I could afford £111.31 every 4 weeks. At this moment I owe £16,381.70 in total. And I don't own any major assets like a house or car.

Hi Davros.

By my reckoning a revised DAS payment at that level would leave you with more than 11 years to pay it all back.

The four-weekly sum that you mention is probably at the low end to make a trust deed work, but I think there are firms that could make it happen.

If this is the route you'd like to take it will be very important to find a firm with low fees. You may also have to look at a trust deed that runs for a little longer than three years, though that again will be driven by the subject of fees.

I should say as well that sequestration (bankruptcy) might also be worthy of consideration.

Any payments due will be for three years, whereas a trust deed might be longer.

If you do wish to enter a trust deed then you can sign up without ending your DAS first. If your trust deed then successfully becomes protected your DAS should automatically be revoked.

I'd agree with trust deed assistant that sequestration might be worth considering as a trust deed would be likely to have to be over longer than 3 years in order for you to be able to cover the trustee's fees and costs as well as pay a high enough contribution to your creditors to get your trust accepted.

Sequestration is a terrifying word. But then, so is the thought of paying off my debt for the next 11 years. After reading a bit about sequestration I'd probably be more inclined to try for a trust deed. Even if I did have to pay a bit more to make it work. I think I see sequestration as the very last resort.

A lot of people feel the same Davros, but in practical terms there often isn't much difference between the two.

Firms that handle trust deeds also handle sequestrations so you'd be able to get further advice on both options at the same time.

I see. I'll look into it further as I never realised that.

That's good to know I could get advice for both in the same place.