Debt relief orders

Use this fact sheet to:

• find out what a debt relief order is and what it does;
• find out if you qualify for a debt relief order and how to apply;
• find out which debts can be included in a debt relief order; and
• understand the effects of a debt relief order on you.

The sample letter mentioned in this fact sheet can be filled in on our website.

What is a debt relief order?

A debt relief order (DRO) may be able to help you if you do not own your home, have few assets and little available income to pay your creditors. It is a cheaper option than bankruptcy. If your DRO application is successful, most creditors cannot take action to recover your debts for 12 months. The debts are then written off after the 12 months are up.

How to apply for a DRO

You can only apply for a DRO through a special adviser called an ‘approved intermediary’. It is not possible to apply directly to the Insolvency Service yourself. You must get advice from an approved intermediary first, and if they agree that a DRO is right for you, they will give you advice and make the application on your behalf. It is free to apply for a DRO. Applications are sent to the official receiver's office through a special on-line system.

The official receiver is a government official who will deal with your application. There is no court hearing. Business Debtline has approved intermediaries who can help you. See the section How we can help.

Do I qualify for a DRO?

There are strict rules that you have to meet to qualify for a DRO. You must:

• be unable to pay your debts;
• have total debts of £50,000 or less at the date the application is approved by the official receiver;
• have assets worth a total of £2,000 or less;
• not have a car or motor bike worth £4,000 or more;
• have £75 a month or less spare income after normal household expenses are taken into account;
• live in England or Wales (or have lived or run a business in England or Wales in the last three years); and
• not have had a DRO approved in the last six years (although you may still qualify if your DRO was cancelled).

When can't you apply?
You will not be eligible for a DRO if you:

• are already bankrupt;
• are in an individual voluntary arrangement (IVA) or an interim order has been made to protect you from creditor action while you wait for an IVA to be approved;
• are subject to a bankruptcy restrictions order or undertaking, or a debt relief restrictions order or undertaking; or
• have a bankruptcy petition pending against you, unless a court has referred you for a DRO.

If you are not eligible for a DRO, contact us for advice on what solutions are available for you to deal with your debts.

No joint applications
You cannot apply for a DRO jointly with another person. If you and your partner both want a DRO, you each have to apply separately. Contact us for advice.

Self-employment
You can remain self-employed as a sole trader or in a partnership. See the later section, Effects of a DRO. You cannot go into a DRO if you are a director of a limited company. If you are a director of a limited company or have shares in a limited company, contact us for advice.

Assets

You can have assets worth up to £2,000 and still qualify for a DRO. Lots of basic household items such as cutlery, crockery, cookers, telivisions, beds or furniture do not count as assets.

Tools of the trade

Tools of the trade include books, tools and equipment that you need to use personally in your business. Tools of the trade do not usually count towards the £2,000 asset limit. If you have tools of the trade and want to know how these might be treated in a DRO application, contact us for advice.

Motor vehicles

If you own a car or motorbike, it will not be counted as an asset as long as it is worth less than £4,000. You can check the value using Parker's Guide. See Useful contacts towards the end of this fact sheet. If you have a specially adapted car because of a disability, contact us for advice.

Motor vehicles used for business

If you own a vehicle which you need to use in your business, this will not usually be considered a tool of the trade. You may be able to have a business vehicle if:

• it is the only vehicle you have;
• you also use it for personal use; and
• its value is less than £4,000.

If your household already has a vehicle then the business use vehicle will not be covered under the vehicle rule, but would fall under the rule about assets worth up to £2,000.

Stock

If your business has any stock, it will be treated as an asset and will count towards the £2,000 asset limit.

Money owed to you

Any money owed to you is treated as an asset. This could be money owed by somebody you have done business with, or money owed to you by a family member or a friend. However, if you can show that you have taken steps to try to recover the money but still have not been paid, it can be treated as a 'bad debt'. Any sum treated as a 'bad debt' will not count towards the £2,000 asset limit. If you are owed money by somebody else, contact us for advice.

Pensions

Pensions approved by HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) do not count towards your £2,000 asset limit. A small number of pensions not approved by HMRC will count as assets.

If you are 55 years old or older and can draw part or all of a pension as a lump sum, the value of your pension may affect whether you qualify for a DRO. Contact us for advice if this affects you.

Any regular payments you receive from a pension will be treated as income when deciding whether you qualify for a DRO.

How we can help

If you qualify for a DRO, Business Debtline’s DRO team can help you to apply. An adviser will check that you meet the criteria and send you an application form. We will also send you a hold action letter which you can send to your creditors (the people you owe money to).

This will let them know that you are applying for a DRO through Business Debtline. See the Hold action while you apply for a debt relief order sample letter. Before sending it to your creditors, contact us for advice.

It may take several weeks for Business Debtline to help you with your DRO application. However, this can change from time to time. Contact us for information about how long it is likely to take at the time you are considering applying for a DRO.

Debts that are included

You can include most types of debt in your application as long as your total debts are less than the £50,000 limit.

Priority debts

You should include priority debts. Examples include:

• rent arrears;
• gas and electricity debts with your current supplier;
• arrears on your phone bill if you need to keep it as an essential service;
• council tax, business rates and community charge arrears; and
• income tax, VAT and National Insurance arrears. Please contact us for advice if you have a tax debt as there are special rules about this.

Your ongoing bills
When you are working out how much you owe, make sure you include any arrears you have on priority debts. You will still need to pay your ongoing rent, energy, council tax bills and so on as normal.

Credit debts

You usually need to include all your credit debts in the application. If you leave a debt out, it cannot be included later. See the section What happens if a debt is left out?.

Examples of debts you may include are:

• water arrears;
• credit cards and store cards;
• bank overdrafts and bank loans;
• loans to finance companies;
• catalogues;
• home-collected credit;
• benefit overpayments;
• family or personal debts;
• hire agreements;
• parking penalty charges; and
• mortgage shortfalls (money you owe if your house was sold for less than the outstanding mortgage).

You may also owe debts from your small business such as:

• money you owe to employees;
• debts to customers who have paid for goods or services that you were unable to supply; and
• debts to suppliers.

Benefit overpayments
Benefit overpayments cannot be recovered by any method, including deductions from your ongoing benefits, if they are included in a DRO.

If you are not sure what debts you should include in the DRO application, contact us for advice.

Excluded debts

Some debts do not count towards the £50,000 limit, although you still have to list them in the DRO application. This means you are still liable to pay these debts in full. You cannot include:

• magistrates’ court fines;
• maintenance, Child Support Agency (CSA) and Child Maintenance Service (CMS) payments and arrears;
• student loans;
• budgeting loans and crisis loans;
• money owed under a ‘criminal confiscation order’; and
• debts resulting from certain personal injury claims against you.

You will need to make sure you pay ongoing payments on these debts and include them in your outgoings.

Hire purchase and conditional sale agreements
You may be able to exclude hire purchase and conditional sale agreements from your DRO in certain circumstances. See the section Hire purchase or conditional sale.

Hire purchase or conditional sale

If you are not in arrears with your hire purchase (HP) or conditional sale agreement, you can choose to exclude the whole balance of the debt from your DRO application. If you decide to leave an HP or conditional sale agreement out of your DRO application, payments towards the agreement will only be an allowable expense if:

• the agreement is for a vehicle worth less than £4,000;
• the agreement is for an item that is needed to cover a basic domestic need; or
• you have a disablity and the agreement is for a vehicle that has been adapted for your use.

If the HP or conditional sale agreement is for a vehicle that is worth £4,000 or more and it has not been adapted because of a disability, payments will not usually be an allowable expense.

If a payment towards the agreement is not an allowable expense, it means you will need to include the debt in your application unless:

• a third party, such as a family member or friend, is willing to take over the payments for you; or
• the payment is £75 per month or less and you have the spare income to pay this.

If you are in arrears with your HP or conditional sale agreement, you must include the arrears in your DRO application.

For more information on HP or conditional-sale agreements and DROs, contact us for advice.

Contract hire and lease hire agreements

Under these types of agreement, you pay a regular monthly amount to the creditor so that you can use the goods. However, you do not own the items.

If the contract hire or lease hire is for an item your business could not operate without, the official receiver will look at whether the amount you are paying for these items is acceptable or not. If the official receiver allows you to keep paying for these items, the debt will not go into the DRO. Contact us for advice.

What happens if my debts are near the £50,000 limit?

Creditors can add interest and charges to your debts up until the date the official receiver approves your DRO. Therefore, if your debts are near the £50,000 limit when you start the application process, your debts could rise to above £50,000 by the time the official receiver considers your application. If this happens, the official receiver will not approve your DRO.

You need to think about the following ideas and get further advice.

• Check what sort of debts you have. Some creditors may not be adding extra interest and charges. But you may have a credit card or a store card which has a high interest rate that is building up each month.
• Try to persuade your creditors to freeze the interest. You can send your creditors the Hold action while you apply for a debt relief order sample letter. However, this letter should only be sent to your creditors when you are at the stage of completing your Business Debtline DRO application pack.
• If you are able to, make payments to your creditors to prevent the debts reaching the £50,000 limit. Contact us for advice as you need to be careful to treat all your creditors fairly if you decide to do this.
• Think about whether anyone can help you make the payments to help keep your debt below £50,000.
• You may be able to apply for a time order. This is a way of asking the court to give you more time to pay a particular type of debt, which may help to prevent the debts reaching the £50,000 limit. See our Time orders on unsecured debt fact sheet for more information.
• With a time order, the court can also change some of the terms of the agreement, such as the rate of interest. This is a complicated area so contact us for advice.

Before I apply

You will need to think about the following steps.

• Get advice about whether you may qualify.
• Use My Budget to work out how much you can pay.
• Start collecting details about your debts and how much you owe each creditor.
• Check your credit reference file to make sure you haven’t forgotten any debts.
• Make sure that your tax returns are up to date.

Changes in your income

Many people who are self-employed see a lot of change in their income during the course of 12 months. During the 12 months of a DRO, you would have to tell the official receiver every time your income increased. Your DRO could be ended if the increased income meant you had more than £75 to pay towards your debt in that month. Think about what a 'best month' is for you and whether you would still have less than £75 left to pay towards your debt in that month. See the section The official receiver and contact us for advice on whether a DRO is the best solution for you.

Listing debts

What happens if a debt is left out?

If you forget about a debt and find out about it after the DRO has been agreed by the official receiver, the debt cannot be included in the DRO. The creditor can continue to take action against you to recover the debt. This means you will need to negotiate repayments separately with that creditor. If this happens to you, contact us for advice. If this debt takes your total debts over £50,000, the official receiver will consider ending or ‘revoking’ your DRO.

What if my debts are higher than the amounts I put on the form?

It is important that you put accurate amounts for what you owe on the application form. This is because the official receiver will only include the amount of debt that you have stated on the application form in the final DRO.

This means that if you use an out of date statement to find out how much you owe a creditor, or if a creditor adds on some interest or charges to a debt after you have completed the application form, you may find that the creditor asks you to pay the difference.

For example, if you have a credit card debt that was £3,200 when you completed the application form and some interest gets added on and it rises to £3,225, the creditor may ask you to pay the extra £25.

If there is a big delay between you filling in the application form and it being sent to the official receiver, you may find that you owe some more money to several of your creditors.

What happens next?

• The official receiver will decide whether to grant your application for a DRO. They can ask you for more information and you must be as helpful as you can. You may want to seek more advice if this happens. Contact us for advice.
• The official receiver will also ask a credit reference agency for information about your credit file. This will help them to check the details that you have provided in your application.
• If the official receiver approves your application, they will send you a letter to confirm that you have been given a DRO.
• The official receiver will also send the order to all the creditors listed in your application.
• Your creditors may object to the DRO being made. They can also object to being included in the DRO or if the information you have given about a debt with them is inaccurate. They can only make such objections on certain grounds, for example that you are not eligible for a DRO. It is not a valid ground for a creditor to object just because they don’t want to be included in the order.
• If your DRO stands, all the debts that are included in the order are put on hold for 12 months. This is called the ‘moratorium period’.
• You should not usually make any more payments on your debts. There are some exceptions to this rule (for example in some situations if you have rent arrears). Contact us for advice.
• Your creditors that are included in the order are not usually allowed to ask you to make any more payments. If this happens, tell the creditors about your DRO using our sample letter Creditors asking for payments after debt relief order approved. You should also let the official receiver know. Contact us for advice.
• If your application is rejected, the official receiver will tell you and your intermediary the reasons.

Future statements from creditors

Under the rules in the Consumer Credit Act 1974, your creditors will usually have to keep sending you annual statements, as well as arrears and default notices in a set format. This will happen even when you are in the 12 month moratorium period under your DRO but should stop after that. Don’t worry. This does not mean that there is a problem with your DRO. If you receive other letters demanding payment, contact us for advice.

The official receiver

It is very important that you co-operate with the official receiver throughout your DRO application.

• You must tell the official receiver about any changes in your circumstances after you apply for a DRO.
• You must give information about your finances to the official receiver if they ask.
• Make sure you have given the official receiver a full list of your debts and assets.
• Tell the official receiver if your income increases, or if you come into any property or a lump sum whilst you have a DRO. You would need to inform the Insolvency Service each month that your surplus exceeded the £75 threshold. It would then be up to them to decide if DRO should be revoked.

Effects of a DRO

If your DRO application is approved, it can affect you in the following ways.

• Certain restrictions will be placed on you for 12 months from when the DRO is approved.
• In certain circumstances a ‘debt relief restrictions order’ can be placed on you.
• Your bank account may be frozen.
• The DRO will be recorded on your credit reference file.
• The DRO will be recorded on a public register called the Individual Insolvency Register.
• Your job could be affected. This is only likely to be the case where your contract of employment states that you are not allowed to have a DRO.
• If you rent your home, your tenancy could be affected. Check your tenancy agreement to see if it states that you are not allowed to have a DRO and contact us for advice.
• The rules for renting a home in Wales changed on 1 December 2022. Most tenants in Wales are now known as ‘contract-holders’ and most tenancies in Wales are now known as ‘occupation contracts’. If you rent your home, check your contract to see what type of agreement you have and how it can be ended.

What restrictions will be placed on me?

The main restrictions are as follows.

• You must not take out credit of £500 or more without telling the lender that you have a DRO. If you are self-employed and your business relies on you being able to obtain credit for cashflow purposes, think if it will be possible to continue to run your business with this restriction.
• You cannot run a business in a different name without telling everyone you do business with the name you used for your DRO.
• You cannot be involved with the promotion, management or formation of a limited company, or act as a company director without getting permission from the court.
• You may not hold certain public offices.
• You cannot apply for a DRO again for six years.

Debt relief restrictions orders

If the official receiver finds that you have not been honest and open about your finances either before or during the DRO, or they decide that you have behaved irresponsibly, they may ask you to agree to a ‘debt relief restrictions undertaking’. If you refuse, they may apply to the court for a ‘debt relief restrictions order’. This means that you will still have certain restrictions on you for between 2 and 15 years after the date of the DRO. Your details will also be kept on the Individual Insolvency Register for the lifetime of the order plus an extra three months.

What will happen to my bank account?

If your DRO application is successful, your bank account will not necessarily be frozen. It will be up to your bank or building society to decide if you are allowed to keep the account open. If you have a debt with your bank or building society, it is likely that your account will be frozen after your DRO is approved. Even if you do not have any debts with your current bank, you account may still be at risk. Check the terms and conditions of your account and contact us for advice.

There is nothing to stop you applying to open a new bank or building society account when you have a DRO, but the bank or building society may ask you if you have a DRO. It is then up to the bank or building society to decide whether they will let you open an account with them. You may be able to open a basic bank account instead. It is a good idea to open a basic bank account after your DRO is approved to try to avoid any problems.

See our Safe bank accounts fact sheet for more information.

How will a DRO affect my credit rating?

Credit reference agencies keep information on DROs for six years in the same way as they do for most other information.

Even after six years, your ability to get a mortgage could be affected. This is because some lenders may ask if you have ever been made bankrupt or had a DRO.

See our Credit reference agencies fact sheet for more information.

How long will my DRO be on the Individual Insolvency Register?

• Your DRO will be displayed on the Individual Insolvency Register in the same way as a bankruptcy order.
• Your details will be held on the Individual Insolvency Register for the 12 months your DRO lasts, plus an extra 3 months. This means 15 months in total.

What other solutions are there?

If you do not qualify for a DRO, there may be other solutions for dealing with your debts such as bankruptcy, a debt-management plan or an IVA. Contact us for advice on the solutions available to you in your circumstances. See our Ways to clear your debt fact sheet for more information.

Useful contacts

Parkers Guide www.parkers.co.uk/cars/prices/

The Debt Relief Order Unit Insolvency Service, 1st Floor Cobourg House, Mayflower Street, Plymouth PL1 1DJ Phone: 0300 678 0015 Email: DRO.Unit@insolvency.gov.uk

The Individual Insolvency Register A register of individuals who are currently in a formal insolvency or are subject to insolvency restrictions. www.insolvencydirect.bis.gov.uk/eiir/

The Insolvency Service The Government agency providing public services to those affected by financial distress or failure www.gov.uk/government/organisations/insolvency-service

Other fact sheets that may help you

Credit reference agencies fact sheet

Safe bank accounts fact sheet

Time orders on unsecured debt fact sheet

Ways to clear your debt fact sheet