Welcome to the forum Clydebankcelt.

As it stands, trust deed providers are (partly) paid in proportion to the amount of funds they recover for creditors. Increased payment levels will often result in increased fees as the system currently works. You can probably see why such a system might be attractive to creditors.

Payment breaks would usually only happen in the event that there was a short-term loss of income, or perhaps a one-off essential expenses. Were you led to believe that they would be readily available to you even if something like this hadn't happened?

Yes, i was told in the initial interview that i could, if i was short of money for something at any given time, miss a payment. This missed month would then be added on at the end, and i could do this 3 times over the 5 year period.
When i phoned asking to do this, i was then told that they can't do that, and that i should not have been told that i could.

Were you told this by the Trust Deed company themselves or were you introduced to the Insolvency Practitioner but a third party such as a debt management company?

I was wondering the same as Voice of Reason.

It's quite an unusual statement really, it sounds more like something from a salesperson rather than an insolvency adviser.

Hi Clydebankcelt,

How much debt did you have before you entered into the Trust Deed? When negotiating directly with your creditors you need to factor in how long this will take for the debt to be repaid and if the lenders will agree to freeze the interest and charges for the full duration of this. An alternative plan to a Trust Deed that doesn’t have any direct fees associated with it (if you use the free advice sector) is a Debt Arrangement Scheme. Behind the scenes in this plan 10% of the money you pay back goes towards the AIB and the Payment Distributor who deal with the funds you pay. Effectively 90% of your debt is repaid.

Depending on the circumstances surrounding a payment break this is something that a Trustee can consider. If it’s an unexpected bill for example a boiler repair, a large MOT bill which hasn’t been budgeted for then in the past we have granted a payment break. The last thing we would want is for a client to turn to finance to cover these bills which then makes it difficult for them financially.

When it comes to the fees under a Trust Deed these for the majority of cases the fees which a Trustee will charge is set by the creditors and capped by them. This is also covered within the legislation – Section 23 of the Protected Trust Deed (Scotland) Regulations 2013. If a Trustee charges more then the creditors will reject the proposal at the outset. Also the fees can be audited by the Accountant in Bankruptcy at any time and they can reduce the fee.

I would try to focus on seeing out the final 12 months of your Trust Deed and then moving on with things. If your unhappy with anything that your Trustee has done or said then you could take this up with them and ask for clarification. Hopefully this time next year you have been discharged and are able to move on and put this all behind you.