How bankruptcy and debt agreements work

Start by separating the four instruments, because they are routinely described as though they were degrees of the same thing. They are not. A declaration of intention to present a debtor's petition, which everyone including business.gov.au calls temporary debt protection, is presented to the Official Receiver under section 54A of the Bankruptcy Act. During the stay period that follows, a creditor holding a frozen debt cannot apply for enforcement process or enforce a remedy against your person or property, and a sheriff must stop executing on your goods. The default period in the Act is 21 days, and section 54B bars you from presenting another declaration within 12 months of the last one being accepted.

The National Debt Helpline is blunt about the limits of that freeze. It stops the sheriff seizing goods and stops a court garnishee of wages or a bank account. It does not stop creditors or debt collectors phoning you, does not stop a creditor commencing or continuing legal proceedings, and does not stop a creditor forcing you into bankruptcy. Its own guidance is that temporary debt protection is a reasonable option only where a garnishee or a seizure is imminent and you have already spoken to a financial counsellor — and that there is no point using it if you are going bankrupt immediately anyway, because bankruptcy stops the same enforcement.

A Part IX debt agreement is a binding compromise. Moneysmart describes it as a formal way of settling most debts without going bankrupt, in which creditors accept an amount you can afford, paid over time, after which those debts are settled. Every affected creditor receives the same proportion of what they are owed — Moneysmart's worked example is that if you repay 90 per cent of your debts over five years, each creditor gets 90 per cent of what you owe them. Section 185C requires the proposal to state that all provable debts rank equally and are paid proportionately.

A Part X personal insolvency agreement is the option almost nobody has heard of and the one that fits a specific profile. Under section 188 you sign an authority naming a registered trustee, a solicitor or the Official Trustee to call a meeting of your creditors and take control of your property; that person becomes the controlling trustee, and the authority is not revocable. Legal Aid NSW's summary is the useful one: a personal insolvency agreement differs from a debt agreement in that there are no income, property or debt limits, and it can be funded by a lump sum or periodic payments. Creditors then vote on it under section 204.

Bankruptcy is the fourth and the most complete. Legal Aid NSW describes it as a legal process where a person is declared unable to repay what they owe, involving giving up control of assets and income to a trustee who divides the assets among creditors. You can enter it voluntarily by debtor's petition or be put into it by a creditor. Legal Aid NSW confirms there is no fee to apply, and the National Debt Helpline says a trustee is appointed within about two weeks of the declaration — either a private registered trustee or AFSA itself acting as the Official Trustee.

Now the sentence that changes how you read the other three. Presenting a declaration of intention under section 54A is an act of bankruptcy. Giving a debt agreement proposal to the Official Receiver is an act of bankruptcy. Signing a section 188 authority is an act of bankruptcy. Financial Rights Legal Centre and the National Debt Helpline both spell out the consequence: a creditor can use any of them as the foundation for a creditor's petition without ever issuing a bankruptcy notice. Three of the four escape hatches hand your creditors a key to the fourth.

Section 185C sets out who may give the Official Receiver a debt agreement proposal, and the gate has four parts. You must be insolvent — unable to pay your debts as and when they fall due. In the ten years immediately before the proposal you must not have been bankrupt, been a party to a debt agreement, or given a section 188 authority. Your unsecured debts must not exceed the threshold amount. The value of the property that would be divisible among creditors if you were bankrupt must not exceed twice the threshold amount, and your after-tax income for the coming year must not be likely to exceed three-quarters of it.

The threshold amount is not a number Parliament writes down. Section 185C defines it as seven times the amount specified in column 3, item 2, Table B, point 1064-B1 of Pension Rate Calculator A in the Social Security Act 1991 — in plain terms, seven times the annualised maximum basic single Age Pension rate. Every time that pension figure is indexed, the debt agreement caps move with it, which is why the Law Handbook published by the Legal Services Commission of South Australia notes that the amounts are indexed and published every six months on AFSA's website.

The Law Handbook gives the figures current as at March 2026: a limit of $150,950.80 for unsecured debts, $301,901.60 for the value of the debtor's property, and $113,213.10 for income. It adds the detail that decides real applications — AFSA has no discretion to vary the monetary limits, even by a small amount. A debtor a few hundred dollars over the property cap is not a borderline case to be argued; they are ineligible, and the alternative options need to be on the table before the application is prepared.

There is a second gate that gets less attention. Section 185C(4)(e) invalidates a proposal where the payments it requires, added to a low income debtor amount and divided by your after-tax income, exceed a percentage the Minister determines by legislative instrument. The Law Handbook explains the purpose: the ratio exists so a debtor can realistically finish the agreement within its term, and the low income debtor amount inside the formula protects people on small incomes. Section 185E separately lets AFSA refuse a proposal that would cause undue hardship.

The term is fixed by section 185C(2AA) and carries a trap. Payments cannot run beyond three years from the day the agreement is made, unless subsection (2AB) applies — that is, unless you hold an interest in real property in Australia that is a dwelling and is your principal place of residence — in which case the maximum is five years. But subsection (2AC) then says that if you use the longer term because you own your home, the property identified in the proposal must not include that interest. The five-year option and the inclusion of your home in the deal are mutually exclusive.

Once a proposal is lodged, the process is administrative rather than judicial. The Law Handbook sets out that the administrator has 14 days to submit the proposal to AFSA after it is complete, that AFSA checks eligibility and affordability before releasing it, and that a proposal is accepted if a majority of creditors by reference to the value of the debts vote in favour. Every creditor with a provable debt at the time your details are entered on the National Personal Insolvency Index is bound, including those who voted against — which is why leaving a debt off the list is a serious mistake rather than a clerical one.

A voluntary bankruptcy begins with two documents. business.gov.au states that you submit a debtor's petition — the formal request to make yourself bankrupt — and a statement of affairs setting out your income, assets and debts, both to AFSA. The National Debt Helpline describes the practical route: create an Insolvency Services Account, verify your identity, and complete and submit the form online, with a paper form available from AFSA on 1300 364 785 if online lodgement is not workable. Legal Aid NSW confirms there is no application fee.

Acceptance is not automatic. Financial Rights Legal Centre notes that the Official Receiver may reject an application where it thinks you could pay your debts within a reasonable time and are unwilling to, or where you have been bankrupt three times before, or once in the last five years. The Law Handbook makes the same point from the other direction: AFSA has a discretion to reject a debtor's petition where the debtor appears solvent or the amount owed is relatively small.

Once you are bankrupt, two things happen at once. Your divisible property vests in the trustee under section 58, and your creditors lose the right to keep chasing you. The Law Handbook's summary of section 58(3) is the one to hold on to: any creditor owed money for a debt incurred before the commencement of the bankruptcy is barred from taking further action against you, so all enforcement and court action stops. Instead the creditor lodges a proof of debt with the trustee under section 84 and takes a share of whatever the estate produces.

Your trustee is either AFSA acting as the Official Trustee or a registered trustee — a qualified insolvency professional registered with AFSA — and business.gov.au notes that if you want a particular registered trustee, they must complete a consent to act declaration that you lodge with your application. If you nominate nobody, AFSA administers the bankruptcy at first and may later transfer it to a registered trustee. Legal Aid NSW lists what the trustee may do: manage or sell your property, recover income above a set limit, investigate your financial affairs, and sell assets to pay debts.

The investigation is broader than most people expect and it looks backwards. Section 122 makes a payment to one creditor within six months before the petition void as a preference if it puts that creditor ahead of the others, and the trustee can recover it and redistribute it. Financial Rights Legal Centre's plainer version is that the trustee can reclaim assets you have given away or sold for less than their true value. Under sections 139D and 139E a court can even order that property of a company, trust or partnership controlled by the bankrupt vest in the trustee where the bankrupt provided personal services to it while unable to pay their own debts.

There is an ongoing duty that is easy to breach by accident. business.gov.au states that you must tell your trustee about any change to your financial situation, including your income, employment or assets. The Law Handbook notes that bankrupts who fail to co-operate with the trustee — for example by not notifying earnings or a change of address — may be punished by the court or have the bankruptcy extended. The obligations do not pause because nothing has changed; the reporting does.

Section 116(1) sweeps in everything: all property belonging to or vested in you at the commencement of the bankruptcy, and everything acquired or devolving on you after it and before discharge. Section 116(2) then carves out the exceptions, and the carve-outs are the whole of what protects an ordinary household. They cover property held on trust for someone else, prescribed household property, personal property of sentimental value identified by special resolution, tools of trade below a prescribed limit, a means of transport below a prescribed limit, life policies and superannuation, personal injury compensation, National Redress Scheme and Territories Stolen Generations payments, NDIS supports and NDIS amounts, and certain rural support payments.

Regulation 27 of the Bankruptcy Regulations 2021 turns the phrase 'household property' into a literal list. Basic household property includes sufficient furniture and beds for the household, educational, sporting or recreational items mainly for children or students, one television, one set of stereo equipment, one radio, one washing machine and one dryer or a combined unit, one refrigerator and one freezer or a combined unit, one generator where the household relies on it for power, one telephone, one home entertainment appliance or console, one personal computer, and one set of equipment providing internet access. Kitchen equipment, crockery, bedding, linen, heating and cooling and anti-burglar devices are protected to the extent reasonably appropriate for the household. Regulation 27(5) makes the exception to the exception explicit: none of this stops antiques being sold.

The car and the tools are the two figures people search for. Regulations 29 and 30 set the base amounts at $3,800 for property used to earn income by personal exertion and $8,100 for property used primarily as a means of transport, for a bankruptcy in the 2020-21 financial year, then index both annually and round down to the nearest multiple of $50. Financial Rights Legal Centre quotes the resulting figures as $4,600 for tools of trade and $9,950 for a car or motorcycle as at July 2026; Legal Aid NSW's page carries an earlier pair, $4,350 and $9,400. Section 116(2C) adds a fairness valve: if the trustee sells a vehicle and you have no other protected transport, the trustee must pay you back up to the protected amount out of the proceeds.

Superannuation is protected, but the timing decides it. Section 116(2)(d) excludes your interest in a regulated superannuation fund, an approved deposit fund or an exempt public sector scheme, and excludes a payment from such a fund received on or after the date of the bankruptcy where the payment is not a pension. Financial Rights Legal Centre puts the practical rule as: superannuation is safe as long as it stays in your super fund, and payments from life insurance or superannuation are protected if received on or after the date of bankruptcy, but not if received before it. A lump sum withdrawn a fortnight early is money in a bank account, and money in a bank account is divisible property.

Cash is treated harshly and people are unprepared for it. The National Debt Helpline lists money in bank accounts in excess of $1,000 at the beginning of the bankruptcy among the assets you will probably lose, alongside real estate, cars over the protected value, antiques and luxury electronics, artworks and some jewellery, and any inheritance, tax refund or lottery winnings. Financial Rights Legal Centre describes the same rule as being left with only a small amount to live on. A refund or an inheritance arriving mid-bankruptcy is caught by section 116(1) exactly as if you had held it on day one.

The family home is the hardest part to explain honestly, because the trustee's interest does not expire when the bankruptcy does. Financial Rights Legal Centre's account is the clearest published one: the trustee is interested in your equity, will often leave a property alone while the mortgage is close to or above its value, and can sell it later if equity increases — at any time during the bankruptcy and for a long time after discharge. Anything you pay in the meantime to stay there is in substance rent. Where you own property with someone else, the trustee takes your share, the co-owner is offered the chance to buy it, and if they cannot, the property may be sold and their share paid out.

Bankruptcy does not stop you working and does not take your wages. It takes a slice of income above a threshold, assessed year by year. Division 4B of Part VI of the Bankruptcy Act sets up a contribution assessment period that begins on the day you become bankrupt and on each anniversary, and ends a year later or on discharge or annulment, whichever is first. For each period the trustee makes an assessment under section 139W of the income you are likely to derive, and section 139P makes you liable to contribute where that assessed income exceeds the actual income threshold amount applying when the assessment is made.

The threshold is scaled to your household. Section 139K defines the base income threshold amount for a full-year period as 3.5 times the annualised maximum basic single Age Pension rate, then increases it where you support dependants: by 18 per cent for one dependant, 27 per cent for two, 32 per cent for three, 34 per cent for four, and 36 per cent for more than four. A dependant is defined narrowly — a person who resides with you, is wholly or partly dependent on you for economic support, and whose own income does not exceed the amount prescribed by the regulations. Financial Rights Legal Centre quotes the after-tax base figure as $75,475.40 as at April 2026.

What counts as income is wider than what appears on a payslip. Section 139L brings in annuities and pensions paid from a superannuation, provident, retirement or approved deposit fund, termination payments, annuity or pension amounts under life or endowment policies, trust distributions paid out of trust income, the value of fringe-benefit-style benefits provided to you by anyone, the value of a loan from an associated entity — including a loan that is not legally enforceable — and money received by someone else as a result of work you did. Child support you receive and maintenance for children in your care are expressly excluded, and the Law Handbook notes contributions are not payable out of social security payments.

You have a reporting duty with a hard clock on it. Section 139U requires you to give the trustee, as soon as practicable and in any event within 21 days of the end of each contribution assessment period, a statement of all income you derived during it and all income derived by each of your dependants. This is the mechanism the whole division runs on, and failing it is one of the ways a bankruptcy gets extended rather than merely generating a reminder letter.

There is a hardship route and almost nobody uses it. Section 139T lets you apply in writing to the trustee for a determination that the threshold be treated as higher for a period, on listed grounds — among them that you or a dependant has an illness or disability requiring ongoing medical attention and medicines that you must fund substantially from income, and that you must pay child day-care costs from income to stay in work. If the trustee is satisfied you will suffer hardship, it may raise the threshold to an amount it determines; if it is not, it must refuse. Either way it must give written reasons and tell you that you can ask the Inspector-General to review the decision.

The liability outlives the bankruptcy. Section 153(1) releases a discharged bankrupt from all provable debts, but section 153(2)(aa) carves out liability to pay an amount to the trustee under section 139ZG(1) — the contribution provision. Unpaid income contributions are also one of the grounds on which Financial Rights Legal Centre says a bankruptcy can be extended to five or eight years. Treating contributions as optional is the fastest way to turn a three-year process into an eight-year one and still owe the money.

Section 82(1) makes almost everything provable: all debts and liabilities, present or future, certain or contingent, to which you were subject at the date of bankruptcy or become subject before discharge because of an obligation incurred before it. Section 153(1) then releases you from every provable debt on discharge. business.gov.au lists the everyday examples that fall inside — credit cards, personal loans, utility bills, unpaid rent, overdrawn accounts, and legal and accounting fees. The exceptions are what the rest of this section is about, and they are not marginal.

Study loans are excluded by name. Section 82(3AB) says a debt incurred under Part 4-1 of the Higher Education Support Act 2003 — a HELP debt — is not provable in bankruptcy, and nor is a VET Student Loans debt under Part 3A of the VET Student Loans Act 2016, a student start-up loan under the Social Security Act 1991, an ABSTUDY student start-up loan under the Student Assistance Act 1973, or an Australian apprenticeship support loan. Bankruptcy does nothing at all to a study debt, and the compulsory repayment obligation continues through it on exactly the same terms.

Court-imposed fines and penalties are also outside the system. Section 82(3) provides that penalties or fines imposed by a court in respect of an offence are not provable, and section 82(3AA) does the same for an amount payable under a Corporations Act pecuniary penalty order, while section 82(3A) excludes amounts payable under a proceeds of crime law. Legal Aid NSW and business.gov.au both list court-imposed penalties and fines among the debts you must keep paying. State fines-enforcement consequences continue too, and they are set by each state and territory rather than by the Bankruptcy Act: the Law Handbook notes that in South Australia unpaid expiation fines can still produce a licence suspension order or a cessation-of-business order barring vehicle transactions. New South Wales, Victoria, Queensland, Western Australia, Tasmania, the ACT and the Northern Territory each run their own fines enforcement agency with its own sanctions, so check what your state's agency can still do to you before assuming bankruptcy has stopped it.

Family obligations survive by design. Section 153(2)(c) provides that discharge does not release you from any liability under a maintenance agreement or maintenance order, subject only to a court order under section 153(2A) that may release arrears to the extent and on the conditions the court thinks fit. Legal Aid NSW, business.gov.au and the National Debt Helpline all list child support and maintenance among the debts that continue. Fraud is treated the same way: section 153(2)(b) preserves a debt incurred by fraud or a fraudulent breach of trust, or one you obtained forbearance on by fraud.

Two categories catch people who assumed bankruptcy was a clean sweep. Unliquidated damages arising other than from a contract, promise or breach of trust are not provable under section 82(2) — the Law Handbook's example is a claim against you arising from a motor vehicle accident where you were at least partly at fault, and its advice is to finalise that kind of claim before going bankrupt rather than after. And section 82(3B) excludes interest accruing on a provable debt for any period on or after the date of bankruptcy, which matters if a debt agreement later terminates and the original creditor starts adding interest again.

Finally, bankruptcy protects you and nobody else. Section 153(3) preserves a secured creditor's right to realise its security, so a mortgage or a car loan is not defeated by your bankruptcy; the lender can still take the asset. Section 153(4) is the one that ends friendships: discharge does not release a partner, a co-trustee, a person jointly bound with you, a co-contractor, or a surety or guarantor. If a family member guaranteed your business loan, your bankruptcy leaves them holding the whole of it.

Two smaller distinctions are worth knowing because they are counter-intuitive. The Law Handbook records that a Centrelink overpayment incurred as a result of actual fraud is not released, but an overpayment arising from administrative error is included in the debts discharged. And a tax debt owed to the ATO is released on bankruptcy — but a statutory garnishee the Commissioner issued over wages before the date of bankruptcy is not.

Section 44 sets the conditions for a creditor's petition. The petitioning creditor, or several creditors together, must be owed a liquidated sum amounting to the statutory minimum, and the act of bankruptcy relied on must have been committed within six months before the petition is presented. Section 5(1) defines the statutory minimum as $5,000 unless a greater amount is prescribed, and regulation 10A of the Bankruptcy Regulations 2021 prescribes $10,000. The National Debt Helpline dates that threshold to 1 January 2021 and notes it was $5,000 before 25 March 2020.

Financial Rights Legal Centre sets out the usual five-step route, and its estimate is that it can take as little as eight weeks from the start of court action to a bankruptcy hearing. A statement of claim or summons is served — in New South Wales you have 28 days to respond, and in other states it may be shorter, for example 21 days. If you do not respond, the creditor obtains a default judgment. The creditor then serves a bankruptcy notice, which usually gives you 21 days to pay the debt in full. Failing to comply with it is the act of bankruptcy. The creditor then files a creditor's petition, and the court makes a sequestration order.

The bankruptcy notice stage is the last cheap exit and it has real options. Financial Rights Legal Centre lists them: pay in full within the 21 days; negotiate repayments and get the creditor to agree in writing not to take further action; oppose the notice, which is rarely available and usually adds costs without changing the outcome; or pay enough of the debt to bring it under $10,000 before a creditor's petition issues. It also flags the counter-move — a creditor may add another creditor to the petition, or add amounts that have fallen due since the judgment, to get back over the line.

You will not always see the earlier steps. Financial Rights Legal Centre points out that a creditor does not need a statement of claim, a judgment and a bankruptcy notice if it already has another act of bankruptcy to rely on — and it names three: proposing or terminating a Part 9 debt agreement, filing for temporary debt protection or a declaration of intention, and the sheriff attempting unsuccessfully to seize your goods under a judgment. For some people the creditor's petition is the first document they ever receive.

Attendance matters more than argument at that point. Financial Rights Legal Centre's guidance is that a creditor's petition is very serious, that you will almost certainly be made bankrupt if you do not act, that the petition specifies whether you must attend in person or by phone, and that you must attend or you can be made bankrupt in your absence. On a first appearance you can seek an adjournment to get legal advice or to raise the money. The Law Handbook adds that if you can satisfy the court you are solvent and can pay everything within a reasonable time, the hearing will be adjourned.

The cost of getting this wrong is the reason to act early. Financial Rights Legal Centre states that where someone is made bankrupt who could have paid the debt, setting aside or annulling the bankruptcy costs many thousands of dollars more than the debt — sometimes tens of thousands — because you may have to pay the creditor's legal costs and the trustee's costs as well as the debts. Its case study is a $5,000 credit card debt that cost more than $30,000 to unwind two years later out of a $40,000 inheritance. Section 153A does provide for automatic annulment once the trustee is satisfied all debts have been paid in full, but 'in full' includes interest and the costs of the administration.

One more warning worth repeating because it is empirical rather than legal. Financial Rights Legal Centre says the debts it most often sees in the bankruptcy lists are strata levies, business and commercial debts, and school fees — strata in particular, because an owners corporation knows there is a property behind the debt that can be forcibly sold. Its advice is to keep paying whatever you can afford while a strata dispute runs, rather than withholding levies as leverage.

The National Personal Insolvency Index is a public register established by regulation 73 of the Bankruptcy Regulations 2021 and maintained by the Official Receiver for the Inspector-General. Regulation 84 lets any member of the public request an extract on payment of the fee, and regulation 85 makes that extract admissible as prima facie evidence. business.gov.au, Moneysmart and Legal Aid NSW all state the same consequence for bankruptcy: even after it ends, your name stays on the NPII permanently. Regulation 80 provides the one relief — a debtor can ask the Inspector-General to keep information off the register or remove it where publication would jeopardise their safety, with a domestic violence order given as the example, though a name and date of birth can never be removed and a refusal is reviewable by the Administrative Review Tribunal.

Debt agreements are treated differently, and the difference is written into regulation 82. Where an agreement ends under section 185N, all information about it must come off within a month of the later of five years after the agreement was made and the day it ended. Where it is terminated, removal follows the later of five years from the making of the agreement and two years from termination. Under regulation 83, a proposal that is withdrawn, rejected, cancelled or allowed to lapse comes off within a year. The permanence people fear is a feature of bankruptcy, not of the whole insolvency system.

Credit reporting runs on its own clock and the published periods differ slightly. Moneysmart says a bankruptcy stays on your credit report for five years and a debt agreement for five years or more. Financial Rights Legal Centre puts the bankruptcy listing at five years or two years from discharge, whichever is longer. The National Debt Helpline says a debt agreement appears for five years from the date you enter it or two years from the date it ends. In every version the practical effect is the same: expect roughly five years of difficulty getting credit, a rental property, telecommunications services or insurance.

Borrowing while bankrupt is regulated rather than banned. Section 269 makes it an offence punishable by up to three years' imprisonment for an undischarged bankrupt, or a party to a debt agreement, to obtain credit at or above a set amount without telling the other person — and the same applies to cheques and promissory notes, hire-purchase and leasing agreements, obtaining goods or services on a promise to pay, and taking money on a promise to supply. The Act's figure is $3,000; Financial Rights Legal Centre quotes the indexed figure as $7,412 as at July 2026. Section 269(1)(b) also makes it an offence to trade under a business or firm name without telling everyone you deal with your real name and your status.

Work restrictions are real but uneven. Moneysmart states that you cannot be a director of a company without court permission, and the Law Handbook cites section 206B(3) of the Corporations Act 2001 — the section headed 'Automatic disqualification — convictions, bankruptcy and foreign court orders' — for the rule that a current bankrupt cannot be a director, promoter or manager without leave of the court. Financial Rights Legal Centre adds the contrast that matters most to directors: you can remain a company director during a Part IX debt agreement, but not during bankruptcy or a personal insolvency agreement. Beyond directorships the bars come from other statutes and professional bodies — the Law Handbook's South Australian examples include building work contractors, plumbers, gas fitters and electricians, second-hand dealers and pawnbrokers, and land agents.

Travel needs written permission, and discharge arrives on a date fixed by statute. Section 272(1)(c) makes it an offence punishable by up to three years' imprisonment to leave Australia, or do an act preparatory to leaving, without the trustee's written consent; section 272(2) lets the trustee attach conditions to that consent, including conditions about paying contributions. Section 149(1) then discharges you at the end of three years from acceptance of the petition or filing of the statement of affairs — the three years and one day that AFSA, business.gov.au and Legal Aid NSW all describe — unless the trustee files an objection under section 149A, which extends it to five years, or eight on the more serious grounds in section 149D. Section 153A annuls a bankruptcy early once every debt has been paid in full.

Against all of that sits the step every official source names first, and it costs nothing. Moneysmart's advice is to explore other options before considering bankruptcy or a debt agreement — more time to pay, a flexible arrangement, or a smaller payment to settle — with a financial counsellor's help, and it draws the line plainly: businesses that charge fees for this work are debt consolidation and refinancing companies, not financial counsellors. There are four free lines. The National Debt Helpline is on 1800 007 007, weekdays 9:30am to 4:30pm, with live chat until 8:00pm. Mob Strong Debt Help is on 1800 808 488 for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples anywhere in Australia. The Small Business Debt Helpline is on 1800 413 828, weekdays 9:00am to 5:30pm. Eligible farmers, fishers and foresters can use a rural financial counsellor. Victoria Legal Aid's practical note is that appointments take time to get, so call early.

Those services exist partly as a counterweight to an industry that markets hard. The National Debt Helpline warns that many debt agreement administrators promote aggressively, that some charge very high fees for services you may not need, and that advertising mentioning one easy monthly payment and a government-backed scheme is often a debt agreement dressed as debt consolidation. Financial Rights Legal Centre describes the mechanics that cost people money: brokers paid a fee, a cut of your repayments or both; up-front fees of sometimes thousands of dollars charged before creditors have voted and rarely refunded; and brokers who suggest you stop paying creditors to afford the fee. Check the administrator is on AFSA's register, holds insurance and is an AFCA member, then complain to the administrator, to Bankruptcy Regulation at AFSA, or to AFCA on 1800 931 678 if it goes wrong.