What is a relevant acknowledgement

What constitutes a ‘relevant acknowledgement’ is the client making a payment to the debt or writing to the creditor to acknowledge the debt. This can include when a client is disputing the amount owed.

When there has been a relevant acknowledgement, the prescription period begins running again.

This also applies if the debt was joint and only one of the liable parties made a ‘relevant acknowledgement’ – prescription begins again, even if the other party did not make a payment or acknowledge the debt in writing.

Prescription can be interrupted when a client includes their debt in a Debt Payment Programme (DPP) under the Debt Arrangement Scheme (DAS) or gets a time to pay direction or order under the Debtors (Scotland) Act 1987 or a time order under the CCA 1974.

Prescription begins running again when the client comes out of the programme (when their DPP is revoked or the time to pay/time order is defaulted).

If they have completed the DAS or the time to pay and the debt is paid, the matter of prescription is no longer relevant.

Any fraud or error by the client that induces a creditor to not make a relevant claim can also interrupt the running of prescription – eg, the client pretending they are dead in order to stop a creditor raising an action in court.