A map of debt management approaches, drawn in the order a household actually meets them.

Start with the nation, not the advert

England and Wales share the Debt Respite Scheme, usually called Breathing Space, and the debt relief order administered with the Insolvency Service. Scotland’s statutory repayment programme is the Debt Arrangement Scheme. Protected trust deeds and sequestration sit alongside it. Northern Ireland runs its own insolvency system through its own courts and intermediaries. A page that flattens those into one “UK IVA” is already misleading, even when the initials look familiar.

If you have moved recently, the relevant test is often where you live now and, for some insolvency routes, whether you have lived or worked in that nation during a set period. A free adviser checks this before anyone fills in a form. We do not.

Priority and everything else

Priority debts are the ones where the consequence of falling behind is sharper than a damaged credit file. In a typical English or Welsh household that list includes rent or the mortgage, secured loans, council tax, gas and electricity supply, magistrates’ court fines, child maintenance, the TV licence, and hire purchase or conditional sale on goods that can be taken back if you need them. If you are self-employed, income tax, VAT and National Insurance belong in the same serious pile.

Non-priority debts still matter. Credit cards, store cards, catalogues, unsecured loans, overdrafts, payday lending and buy-now-pay-later agreements can sue, and they can make daily life tight. They do not, in ordinary cases, disconnect a domestic water supply in England and Wales, and they do not by themselves evict you. Water companies can still take court action for arrears. Benefit overpayments are their own category and should be listed, not hidden.

A plan that pays a store card while council tax enforcement is live is not a clever hack. It is the wrong order. The household budget page shows how to separate the two piles on one sheet.

Informal approaches

Most people who get back on top of debt never enter a formal insolvency. The ordinary tools are a written budget, a call to each priority creditor to agree arrears alongside the ongoing bill, and a method for the non-priority balances. That method might be snowball or avalanche if every minimum can still be met, which we work through on the methods page. It might be a temporary token or reduced offer while you wait for advice. It might later become a debt management plan administered by a free provider, which is organised but still informal: creditors do not have to accept it, and interest freezes are a concession, not a right.

Holding letters have a use. Ignoring post does not. Unopened envelopes do not stop a liability order, a default notice or a visit. Open them, list the balances, the account numbers and the dates, and take that list to an adviser. You do not need to agree to the first arrangement a creditor’s call centre offers, especially if it assumes money you have already allocated to rent.

Consolidation is a new contract, not a magic rubber

A consolidation loan, a further advance, or a balance-transfer card can reduce the interest you pay. It can also lengthen the debt, add fees, and leave the old cards open so the balances grow back. If the new borrowing is secured on your home, you have turned unsecured debt into something that can threaten the house. That is a different risk, and it deserves a slower conversation than a lunchtime advert.

Promotional 0% transfers only help if three things are true at once: you are accepted, you can clear or realistically reduce the balance before the promotional rate ends, and you stop using the old account as spending money. People already in arrears are often declined. A decline is information, not a personal verdict.

When the informal pile is not enough

If the budget shows no surplus, or the surplus is smaller than the minimums, repayment methods that assume you can keep every account current will fail on paper before they fail in the month. That is the point at which formal routes enter the conversation: Breathing Space as a pause while advice is taken, a debt relief order or bankruptcy where debts are eventually written off for people who meet tight tests, an individual voluntary arrangement where there is a steady surplus and creditors agree, an administration order in some smaller county-court cases. Scotland looks at a Debt Arrangement Scheme, a trust deed or sequestration, including the Minimal Asset Process for people with very little. The formal routes page sets these side by side and marks the figures we checked in 2026.

None of those routes is something to start from a blog form. Applications for DROs go through approved intermediaries. Breathing Space is started by a debt adviser. IVAs are set up by insolvency practitioners. The free charities can explain which door, if any, fits, and they can also tell you when the right move is simply a budget and a phone call to the council.

A note on old debts

In England and Wales, many ordinary credit debts become difficult for a creditor to enforce through the courts once six years have passed without a payment or a written acknowledgement, under the Limitation Act 1980. That sentence is already too short to act on. Mortgage capital, council tax, benefit overpayments and some other debts follow different rules. A payment, or a signed acknowledgement, can start time running again. Scotland’s prescription rules are different again, and often shorter. If someone tells you to “just wait it out” without reading the paperwork, treat that as a slogan. Ask an adviser whether a specific account is statute-barred before you pay it or before you refuse to.