Sale of properties in bankruptcies and trust deeds information: FOI release

Information requested

I am seeking anonymised, statistical data held within the Accountant in Bankruptcy’s internal tracking systems—specifically the BASYS system and the electronic Sederunt Books—concerning property asset realisations by private trustees.

1 January 2021 to 31 December 2025

Specifically, I request the following information:

1. Forced Sale Approvals: The total number of pre-action property sale proposals submitted by private Insolvency Practitioners (IPs) and formally approved by the AiB Trustee Supervision Team via the BASYS system during this period.

2. Firm-Specific Volume: Out of those total approved property actions, how many related to Protected Trust Deeds administered specifically by Carrington Dean (or their parent/associated licensed insolvency practitioners)?

3. Court Petitions: The total number of cases where an electronic Sederunt Book logs that a private trustee successfully filed a petition at a Scottish Sheriff Court to force the sale of a debtor's residential property.

4. Financial Realisation Method: According to the audited Form 5 (Receipts and Payments accounts) submitted to close cases during this period, how many Protected Trust Deeds successfully realised home equity via:

a) A third-party lump-sum buyout.
b) A voluntary sale by the debtor.
c) A court-ordered forced sale of the property.

Response

1. Please see Annex A attached. Please note that when court action is approved this may not be the final outcome as the debtor may reach an agreement with the trustee to prevent an application being made.

2. The Accountant in Bankruptcy does not have the information you have asked for because a trustee is not required to submit a proposal to AIB for approval of action to be taken on a property in a trust deed. This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that The Accountant in Bankruptcy does not have the information you have requested.

3. While our aim is to provide information whenever possible, in this instance the costs of locating, retrieving and providing the information requested would exceed the upper cost limit of £600. The reason for this is that our systems do not hold this information in a format we can produce a report. To find the information we would require to manually look at each case. Our records show 5,236 cases were awarded during the period requested, however, there would also be live cases awarded prior to 1 January 2022 which would also require to be checked. During the administration of a case the trustee can upload documents to the electronic Sederunt Book as they are received but all documents must be uploaded when a trustee applies for their discharge, therefore, the relevant documents may not be held by AiB at this time. Under section 12 of FOISA public authorities are not required to comply with a request for information if the authority estimates that the cost of complying would exceed the upper cost limit, which is currently set at £600 by Regulations made under section 12. You may, however, wish to consider reducing the scope of your request in order that the costs can be brought below £600. You may also find it helpful to look at the Scottish Information Commissioner’s ‘Tips for requesting information under FOI and the EIRs’ on his website at: http://www.itspublicknowledge.info/YourRights/Tipsforrequesters.aspx

4. The Accountant in Bankruptcy does not have the information you have asked for because the Form 5 only provides a realisation figure for property, not the method in which the monies were ingathered. This is a formal notice under section 17(1) of FOISA that The Accountant in Bankruptcy does not have the information you have requested.

About FOI

The Scottish Government is committed to publishing all information released in response to Freedom of Information requests. View all FOI responses at https://www.gov.scot/foi-responses.

FOI 202600520829 - Information Released - Annex A

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