Welcome to the forum Trebor.

In sequestration you'll be discharged after a year. In total you'll be required to contribute towards your debts for three years (two years after your discharge it ends) but only if it's deemed to can afford to. Some assets may vest in your trustee who may look to realise the value of them.

A trust deed will run for a minimum of four years. You'll only have access to this option if you can contribute surplus income and/or from the realisation of assets that vest in your trustee.

The advantages and disadvantages really depend on your circumstances. For example:

Do you have surplus income you can contribute towards your debts?

Do you have assets, such as a car or being a homeowner?

Are you a company director? What do you do for a living?

How do you instinctively feel about each option?

Thank you for this information, can I ask if you could clarify the part where you say that "In sequestration you'll be discharged after a year" but will be required to towards your debts for three years (two years after your discharge it ends)" I am not sure what you mean by discharged after a year?

Hi Trebor

Generally sequestration last for 3 years, however any restrictions imposed on you by the sequestration are lifted after 12 months. So you can be that MP you always wanted to be or be the Director of that limited company you had planned. I know, it's kind of daft in practice, but I'm guessing the thinking was to allow people the freedom to be entrepreneurs after a year.

Unfortunately the trustee remains in office for the full 3 years, so any contribution etc would continue for the full period.

Mark

What redress does someone have if they were put on say a Trust Deed with insufficient income to cover the payments, when they should have been put in to sequestration.

Hi Trebor

To enter the Trust Deed, there needs to be a certain criteria met which both the creditors will accept and the individual agrees is achievable in terms of payments. If the figures are discussed and agreed as being viable, the they have made the decision to proceed along the trust deed route based on information provided and signed statements to that effect.

Mark

Hi Trebor.

You have the option to complain to your trustee, and then to their professional regulatory body if you subsequently remain unhappy.

However, as Mark has explained, entering into a trust deed is a voluntary process and you will have agreed to the payment level at the start. Your trustee will presumably be able to evidence this from documents used at the start of the process.

Thank you to both of you for this information and I fully understand what you are saying, so lets say for instance a representative from the Trust Deed comes to the house and goes through all your income and expenditure and says that you will be required to pay ex amount of pounds over three years, we were told by the rep that they were on a Trust Deed and it was the best thing they ever did, spare cash every month and they had just come back of holiday. We stated that we felt that the figures were tight and this did not give us any spares cash, the figures were adjusted and we agreed, a few days later the same rep came back with completely different figures and this time over four years, we said that we could not pay this amount every month and why over 4 years, she said sometimes creditors want a bit more, and the term can be extended. We said we would have to think about it and get back to her, this is when she became extremely nasty and said, the only other option you have id the bailiffs, they will come in and empty your house they will leave you with the bare minimum all this will go pointing to our suite, TV anything electrical that is not deemed a necessity will be taken away and sold, all the kids stuff Xbox's Play stations etc. She scared us, then said id you start making the payments and struggle they will review it. This is why we signed, we were forced in to signing using scare tactics. We have from day one requested reviews to no avail, because all we get is you agreed to pay this amount when you signed up and we get no reply back from why we signed up.So can I ask what redress to we have.

Hi Trebor.

It sounds as though you've been treated terribly based upon that account. The approach seems deceptive, unethical and ridiculous on the part of the rep that visited you.

Was this a member of staff from your trust deed provider?

Alternatively, was it someone from an intermediary firm who later passed you onto your trust deed provider?

As far as we were to believe she worked for the Trust Deed, our Trust Deed has since been moved to another company and we have been fighting them for the last 4 years in regards to being miss sold we have recently received acknowledgement that we were wrongly advised and that due to our income we should have been sequestrated not placed in to a Trust Deed.

Hi Trebor

If the Trustee has confirmed this, then the option he/she has is to discharge the trust deed and this will allow you to petition for sequestration.

Mark

Sorry Mark for the delay,and apologies for the length of this post but a lot of happened since I last posted.

After many, many request over the 3.5 years we were finally granted a meeting with our Trustee. During the hour long meeting in which he humiliated both of us, made us feel dirty, made feel like parasites, he was rude condescending patronising, was not sure of the Scottish law told us about other clients, it was pretty clear that he was not interested in what we had to say, he was clearly not prepared to listen. I and my wife ran through the last 3.5 years o four life (warts and all) he sat either looking out of the window or looking at his watch. He stopped me in conversation and said that despite your claim of being ill advised (he did not like the term) ripped off and lied too despite the catalog of errors from day one and the wrong figures, and that my wife after long term illness had to take so much time off work, he was not going to release us what he was going to do was close down our TD and as you suggested Mark he was going to send us information how we file for our personal sequestration, even though all the information was there backing up everything we had been saying over the years.

In our opinion he had made up his mind before we got there and nothing we said was going to change his mind.

When both my wife and myself stood at the train station she said you can see why people jump in front of trains, we both felt physically sick, I said to my wife, if he (trustee) thinks this is the end then he has another think coming.

Mark cut a long story short, we sent a letter to the senior partner of the company who had been dealing out TD highlighting everything to much to mention here. We received a reply back from the senior partner which said that he had instructed the trustee to close our case and file for a Form 5 which we now have in out possession.

The reason for sending this is that we believe that there are possibly hundreds if not thousands of other people out there who were wrongly advised (lied too) who need to know that they can put pen to paper and get their case looked in to.

Our next tasks is to now seek compensation for the four years we have suffered, I have lost job opportunities (internal promotion and external) and my wife has been unable to take on further education as this required a student loan and due to the TD was declined. So will keep you posted.

Any suggestion in regards to the compensation claim would be helpful.

Regards

Trebor

Can I close Mark by saying thank you to you and the others who have helped us.

Trevor .
I am really glad things have worked out for you. I am glad you had the courage to seek justice .
I have been paralysed with fear but I will also be contacting the senior partner in my trust deed firm .
Good luck

Hi Trebor.

I'm very pleased to hear that you'll now be able to put this behind you.

Congratulations on your determination and persistence.

Regarding any push for compensation, I'd suggest thinking about what the actual costs to you have been (not just financially).

It seems as though sequestration might have been a better fit at the start, so had you taken that route which of the issues you have faced in recent years would have been just the same, and which would have been avoided? For example, would sequestration have affected your wife's ability to obtain credit similarly to the trust deed?