Background
Sequestration is a formal legal process governed by the terms of the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 1985 as amended by the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 1992, the Bankruptcy and Diligence (Scotland) Act 2007 and the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 2016.
In the process a person’s estate is transferred to a trustee; the trustee is the responsible for distributing that estate to the person’s creditor’s in settlement of their claims. For sequestration to be awarded, the debtor must meet the test set out in the legislation for apparent insolvency. Apparent insolvency is the terminology that replaced the more familiar term "bankrupt".
Practically any person’s estates can be sequestrated except for those of a company. In the case of a company the relevant process is that of insolvency which has a limited relevance to the RoI as the law now stands.
Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 2016
The Bill for this Act of the Scottish Parliament was passed by the Parliament on 22nd March 2016 and received Royal Assent on 28th April 2016
It is an Act of the Scottish Parliament to consolidate the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 1985, the Bankruptcy (Scotland) Act 1993, Part 1 of the Bankruptcy and Diligence etc. (Scotland) Act 2007, Part 2 of the Home Owner and Debtor Protection (Scotland) Act 2010, the Bankruptcy and Debt Advice (Scotland) Act 2014, the Protected Trust Deeds (Scotland) Regulations 2013 and related enactments. This Act did not change sequestration law in Scotland: rather, as a consolidating Act, it amalgamated the terms of the various Acts referred to above into a single item of legislation. In turn this means that the policies and practices set out in this manual will apply to all sequestrations and applications for registration affected by them, regardless of whether the sequestration is governed by the 2016 Act or the previous statute.