DRO: what happens after 12 months?

The debts in your DRO are written off, automatically

If your DRO ran its full 12 months without being revoked, the debts listed in it are discharged at the end of the moratorium. Written off means exactly that: you no longer owe them, the creditors cannot chase them, and there is nothing to pay.

It happens automatically by operation of the order. You do not apply for it, confirm it, or pay a fee for it.

The day itself is quiet, though: nothing arrives in the post, and some things people expect to change do not.

Do not wait for a letter, because one is not coming

This is the part that can catch people out. There is no completion certificate for a DRO and usually no letter from the Insolvency Service marking the end.

The moratorium simply expires. If you want confirmation in black and white, there are two places to look: the Individual Insolvency Register, where your entry will be removed about 3 months after the DRO ends, and your credit file, where the debts included in the order should be recorded as part of the DRO (they stay for six years and won't show as paid or settled, which is normal).

What does not change on the day

The DRO marker stays on your credit file for 6 years from the date the order started, not from the date it ended. The debts that were never inside the DRO also survive it: things like student loans, court fines, child maintenance arrears and any debt you took on during the moratorium are untouched and still need paying.

And if a Debt Relief Restrictions Order or Undertaking was made against you, its restrictions run to their own timetable rather than ending with the moratorium.

Coming off the Individual Insolvency Register

Your DRO appears on the Individual Insolvency Register, the public record kept by the Insolvency Service, from the day it is approved. The entry is removed about 3 months after the moratorium ends, so around 15 months after your DRO started.

The register and your credit file are two separate records on two separate clocks: coming off the register does not clear your credit file, and lenders look at the credit file, not the register.

The restrictions end with the moratorium

During the DRO you were under restrictions, the best-known being that you had to tell any lender about the DRO before borrowing £500 or more. When the moratorium ends, so do the restrictions.

You can apply for credit without a disclosure duty, open accounts, and generally run your finances without the DRO's conditions attached. Whether a lender will say yes is a different question, because the marker is still on your file, but the legal restrictions themselves are gone.

The one job worth doing: check all three credit reports

In the weeks after your DRO ends, check your report with Experian, Equifax and TransUnion, using their free statutory reports. Three things to look for on each: the DRO itself is recorded with the correct start date, every debt that was inside the order is recorded as part of the DRO rather than as a live balance, and no default on those debts is dated after the DRO started.

Errors do occur and they matter, because a balance still showing as owed, or a late-dated default, drags on your file for longer than it should. Dispute anything wrong with the agency directly, and mention the DRO and the date it started.

Starting the rebuild

Once the moratorium ends, you can start rebuilding: get on the electoral roll at your current address, keep every bill and commitment paid on time, and consider the products built for thin or recovering files, such as credit-builder tools that report a regular payment to the agencies. The marker stays for its 6 years whatever you do, but what sits alongside it is up to you, and a file showing clean recent history reads very differently to a lender than a file showing nothing at all.