Help With Student Loans - HERE!

shorty2240

Recently I got a small bonus at work, meaning I paid off £30 of my student loan (I get paid weekly)

normally I am not earning anywhere near £15k/yr but this brought me briefly over the threshold.

Anyway today I received a letter saying that the SLC consider me to be repaying my loan and have charged me roughly £125 of interest.

Is this just the way it is, or am I missing something here?

michaelf_3

Hi everyone,

I really hope you can help. I went to Uni for 3 years between 2003-2006 and took out a loan from the SLC of about £12k.

Upon graduating, I got a job in a freelance industry which I moved around for about 2 years on a salary (weekly rate) which ranged from 20k-30k per annum. During this time I noticed small amounts of student loan being taken from my payslip.

Then in March 2008 I got a staff job at a compnay whose accounts department is less than impressive. Anyway, I've been here for the last 3 and a half years on around £35-40k and have paid very little notice to my payslips (stupidly). But it's now come to my attention that ever since I started at my current company in March 2008, according to my payslips I have paid absolutely nothing off my student loan!

Can someone advise me about whether I should contact SLC or the Inland Revenue and let them know that they need to start taking payments again? Or should I lay low and hope they don't ever find me? Or should I just ride it out and what will be the consequences if they come to me in, say, 5 years and say 'you owe us money'. Can they demand a lump sum? Or would they just start taking payments again? And if this happens and I effectively haven't paid anything off in 10 years, would I have a much larger amount to pay back because of the interest than if I just came clean about it now?

Anyway, let me know if more interest is needed but if anyone can help I would hugely appreciate it. It's stressing me out a bit not knowing what I should do.

Thanks,

Michael

MrsManda

shorty2240 wrote: »

Recently I got a small bonus at work, meaning I paid off £30 of my student loan (I get paid weekly)

normally I am not earning anywhere near £15k/yr but this brought me briefly over the threshold.

Anyway today I received a letter saying that the SLC consider me to be repaying my loan and have charged me roughly £125 of interest.

Is this just the way it is, or am I missing something here?

The two things (the payment and the letter) are separate.

You become liable to repay your loan from the April after you graduate if you are working. The letter will be informing you of this.
Your loan has been accruing interest since it hit your bank account which is what the £125 is. You should now receive a statement each year to show how much you've repaid, how much interest has been added to your balance and what your balance is.

In terms of the £30 you repaid. If you earn more than £288 a week then you repay 9% of everything above towards your SL. If at the end of the financial year you have not earned £15,000 you may reclaim any payments you have made towards the repayment of your loan if you wish.

http://www.studentloanrepayment.co.uk/portal/page?_pageid=93,3867311&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL

MrsManda

michaelf wrote: »

Can someone advise me about whether I should contact SLC or the Inland Revenue and let them know that they need to start taking payments again? Can they demand a lump sum? Or would they just start taking payments again? And if this happens and I effectively haven't paid anything off in 10 years, would I have a much larger amount to pay back because of the interest than if I just came clean about it now?
l

It's your responsibility to ensure repayments are made. When you started your new job you should've given them a P45 from your old job with the box ticked to say you have student loans.
Contact your payroll department and ask them to start taking payments. If they need confirmation from the HMRC or the SLC they will tell you.

In theory I believe the SLC can request a lump sum if you've been avoiding repayments and they catch up with you. But by starting repayments without being chased you reduce the chance of this happening.

To your last question, the balance of your account will be much higher now than it would have been if you'd have been repaying your SL over the last 10 years. You may have even finished repaying it completely if you've been averaging £30K a year for the last 10yrs.

It is also your responsibility to ensure that the SLC have the right contact details for you so that they can send you statements and provide you with repayment information.

If I was you, I'd speak to my payroll department to ensure repayments begin immediately and ensure my contact details with the SLC were up to date. Then try not to worry about it as you're now doing the right thing

For information on paying via PAYE and other repayment info go to the SLC repayment website
http://www.studentloanrepayment.co.uk/portal/page?_pageid=93,3867296&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL

michaelf_3

Thanks for the reply Mrs Manda.

I did give them my P45 when I started my new job and assume the box was ticked because I'd been paying it with my previous employer.

I just assumed this would automatically continue and thought that it must just be included in the general 'tax' section rather than specified as Student Loan.

Savvy_Sue

We have been trying without success to 'support' the applications of DS2 and DS3. I've managed to log in to support their applications, but DH can't!

We can't find any trace of his login details anywhere, and despite DH phoning several times and being assured that an email with the necessary information will arrive in about 5 minutes, nothing has appeared. And yes, we've checked the Spam folder.

We had similar problems last year, and eventually downloaded the forms and posted them off, but we can't find this option.

Any advice? Please?

johnswife

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

We have been trying without success to 'support' the applications of DS2 and DS3. I've managed to log in to support their applications, but DH can't!

We can't find any trace of his login details anywhere, and despite DH phoning several times and being assured that an email with the necessary information will arrive in about 5 minutes, nothing has appeared. And yes, we've checked the Spam folder.

We had similar problems last year, and eventually downloaded the forms and posted them off, but we can't find this option.

Any advice? Please?

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/EducationAndLearning/UniversityAndHigherEducation/StudentFinance/DG_183342

Try this link. Says you can download forms.

Did your husband try registering again? It should say he was already registered and then may remind him of his details. Good luck

Helix

johnswife wrote: »

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/EducationAndLearning/UniversityAndHigherEducation/StudentFinance/DG_183342

Try this link. Says you can download forms.

Did your husband try registering again? It should say he was already registered and then may remind him of his details. Good luck

Those forms are for last year, they won't accept them for this years applications.

They have removed this years forms from the website to encourage people to apply online now I think.

If you ask them to post the forms to you then they should do it but it takes 2 weeks for most things to come through from student finance.

Savvy_Sue

johnswife wrote: »

http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/EducationAndLearning/UniversityAndHigherEducation/StudentFinance/DG_183342

Try this link. Says you can download forms.

Did your husband try registering again? It should say he was already registered and then may remind him of his details. Good luck

yes he did try registering again, but it wanted whatever had been sent in the email, I think!

Savvy_Sue

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

yes he did try registering again, but it wanted whatever had been sent in the email, I think!

FINALLY DH managed to sort himself out this afternoon. It turned out that although he'd spelled his email address very slowly and carefully, more than once, they'd been sending emails to the wrong address ...

I don't know what it is with student finance, both DH and I are more than averagely IT literate, but we ALWAYS struggle with their wretched online systems!

Still, only two more years to go ...

Thanks for help and suggestions.