Help With Student Loans - HERE!

Ed-1

Babitty said:

Hello Everyone

Looking for some advice with regards funding and Student Loans for Uni in Scotland.

I am 59 and looking to start Uni next month, in year two of a 4 year degree course. I have never attended Uni before.

I was under the impression from the SAAS website and other sites, that as long as I am under 60 on the first day of my first academic year, I would receive Funding and student loans for all three years? SAAS have now told me thats not the case and once I turn 60 I will not receive anything for the remaining two years of my course.

SAAS website reads.

(You must also be under 60 on the first day of the first academic year of your course of education (the relevant date)  

If you change course and are aged 60 or over on the relevant date of your new course, regardless of which year you enter your new course, you will not be entitled to a student loan for your new course.)

If what I have been told today from SAAS is true, then the above is very badly worded and very misleading indeed? Or maybe its just me?

If I indeed receive no funding after 60, then why is it just not worded, that you will not receive any funding if you are over 60, no matter what year you are in? Also why state first academic year? Should it not read any Academic year?

Also if I start in year two at 59, does this mean I receive no funding at all, as its not the first academic of my course? Or if that’s not the case again why state first academic year and not just any academic year.

Plus, why does it state that changing courses at over 60,  regardless of the year you enter your course, you will receive no funding? Why would the year of the course be relevant, If you receive no funding at over 60 even if you don't change courses?

If it had just stated that there is no funding for anyone over 60 no matter what year or anything, then I would have known where i stood from the get go.

I am sorry for my rant here, but I am shocked and now just dont know what to do regards my course.

Any help and advice would be greatly appreciated.

Who at SAAS told you that? A customer service advisor? They're wrong. As per the website (which are based on the regulations), as long as you are under 60 on 1st September in the academic year your course starts and you don't change courses, you can receive funding for the duration of the course even though you're over 60 in future years. However the maintenance loans for over 60s are lower.

damianh

Hello.

I'm struggling with Student Finance England and don't know where to turn to get my problems sorted out.

I'm the father of a student due to start university in October.  I am self-employed and on a pretty low income - in the lowest income category for student loans.  As such, my son should receive the maximum student loan and this should also automatically trigger a bursary of £2k from my son's university.  However, SFE states that it has been informed by HMRC that I earned some £24k in the relevant tax year.  This means my son will receive a much reduced loan and no bursary (almost £5k less than he ought to get).

I have repeatedly informed SFE of the error, started and escalated a complaint and begun an appeals procedure.  SFE maintains that my income is much higher than I stated on the application form.  I have contacted HMRC about it three times and, on each occasion, they confirm that their records match my version of the story and they tell me that they have no idea where SFE have got their figures.  I've provided SFE with evidence of my webchat with HMRC.   I have also sent SFE a copy of my tax return (which, I'm told, is a legal document) and two letters from HMRC which clearly state my income.  I have requested that SFE tells me why it does not accept my evidence but my query has been ignored. 

SFE is sticking to its position that they think my income is far higher than the true figure.  They suggest that I contact HMRC again.   However, it's a complete waste of time to spend yet another 45 minutes on the phone, just for HMRC to confirm figures which I already know to be correct, especially since I know that it will make no difference to SFE.  I've written to Michelle Donelan, minister for universities (who is also responsible for student finance), but have not yet had a response.

SFE has been giving me the runaround since May and time is now running short. Is it the correct avenue to get a solicitor to start hounding SFE?  Would that approach involve me being charged fees which I can ill-afford?  Somebody, please help, because I don't know where to go from here.  

Many thanks,
Damian.

[Deleted User]

damianh said:

Hello.

I'm struggling with Student Finance England and don't know where to turn to get my problems sorted out.

I'm the father of a student due to start university in October.  I am self-employed and on a pretty low income - in the lowest income category for student loans.  As such, my son should receive the maximum student loan and this should also automatically trigger a bursary of £2k from my son's university.  However, SFE states that it has been informed by HMRC that I earned some £24k in the relevant tax year.  This means my son will receive a much reduced loan and no bursary (almost £5k less than he ought to get).

I have repeatedly informed SFE of the error, started and escalated a complaint and begun an appeals procedure.  SFE maintains that my income is much higher than I stated on the application form.  I have contacted HMRC about it three times and, on each occasion, they confirm that their records match my version of the story and they tell me that they have no idea where SFE have got their figures.  I've provided SFE with evidence of my webchat with HMRC.   I have also sent SFE a copy of my tax return (which, I'm told, is a legal document) and two letters from HMRC which clearly state my income.  I have requested that SFE tells me why it does not accept my evidence but my query has been ignored. 

SFE is sticking to its position that they think my income is far higher than the true figure.  They suggest that I contact HMRC again.   However, it's a complete waste of time to spend yet another 45 minutes on the phone, just for HMRC to confirm figures which I already know to be correct, especially since I know that it will make no difference to SFE.  I've written to Michelle Donelan, minister for universities (who is also responsible for student finance), but have not yet had a response.

SFE has been giving me the runaround since May and time is now running short. Is it the correct avenue to get a solicitor to start hounding SFE?  Would that approach involve me being charged fees which I can ill-afford?  Somebody, please help, because I don't know where to go from here.  

Many thanks,
Damian.

I can appreciate that this perhaps isn't what you want or expect to hear, but I am quite dubious about your claim here.

To qualify my statement:

Student Finance ask you, as a Sponsor, to provide details of your income for a specific tax year. Initially, they will then send the income you declare to HMRC to verify that the income you declare is accurate. They allow for a margin of error of approx. £1k.

If there is a variance from what you've declared to what HMRC tell them is the correct income (which exceeds the margin above), Student Finance will invite you to supply evidence of your income from all sources.

Once received, they'll update the figures and if the evidence resolves the variance, i.e. the evidence corroborates what HMRC have confirmed, then no further action is needed.

However, in this case, you're claiming that you've supplied evidence of your income and it seemingly hasn't resolved the variance.

In these cases, Student Finance would return the information to HMRC and ask that they re-check the figures they returned the first time to make sure they haven't made an error.

You're claiming that the figures haven't changed, in which case HMRC have re-verified to Student Finance that the figures they've supplied are correct based on your taxpayer record.

Legal action serves no purpose but to cost you money. It will have absolutely no impact on the outcome.

As a friendly reminder, HMRC will provide confirmation of your income from ALL sources. This includes, but is not limited to, Rental Income, Salary, Dividend Payments, Taxable Benefits in Kind, Interest from Saving & Investments etc.

Keep in mind that only certain expenses are considered by HMRC and Student Finance, and the income considered is Gross Income, i.e. pre-tax/NI and other deductions.

As for your next steps, outside of (pointless) legal action, Student Finance has details of their formal appeals process published on their website.

I recommend you submit your appeal to them, along with all relevant evidence to support it. They will review your appeal at stage 1 of the process, and if an error has in fact been made, they will correct it.

If they uphold their decision, and you believe that the Regulations still have not been applied correctly, you can request for your appeal to be escalated to the next of the 3 stage process.

That said, if they have detailed quite clearly that the Regulations have been applied correctly, but you are unhappy with their decision, there is no sense in escalating your appeal.

Instead, you may choose to complain, as at this point, it is not about the application of the Regulations and is instead about being disatisfied with an aspect of the service you've received. To set expectations though, a complaint is very unlikely to effect the outcome of theal appeal.

Regardless of which process you choose to invoke, the final stage is a review by an Independent Assessor who will consider all information and evidence before they deliver their conclusion to you and Student Finance.

As a pre-cursor to invoking their appeals process which might be unnecessary, I would recommend getting in touch with Student Finance and, under Data Protection legislation, ask them to provide you with the details of your income that HMRC has provided to them (if you have a partner who has also provided information they will need to make a similar request) and then revert to HMRC so they can try to identify why they are providing one set of details to Student Finance, but advising you that they hold an apparently lower income.

I hope you find my information and suggestion useful.

Disclaimer: not an expert.

sheramber

Have you checked that Student Finance have  the correct details for you, including your  NI number?
 Could they be confirming the income of the wrong person.

[Deleted User]

sheramber said:

Have you checked that Student Finance have  the correct details for you, including your  NI number?
 Could they be confirming the income of the wrong person.

Incredibly unlikely unless the person had the exact same name and DoB. HMRC would return what is called a mismatch instead of verifying income information for a random, unrelated third party.

Disclaimer: not an expert

BerrysBottom

My daughter has a student loan of (originally) £11,500 from 2017 but dropped out of Uni.  The interest that seems to be added is huge (although at the incorrect rate for a while which should have been corrected by now).  Is it worth paying it off?  I’m worried it’ll be hanging round her neck forever - all just for around 7 months in Uni!  Thanks 

[Deleted User]

BerrysBottom said:

My daughter has a student loan of (originally) £11,500 from 2017 but dropped out of Uni.  The interest that seems to be added is huge (although at the incorrect rate for a while which should have been corrected by now).  Is it worth paying it off?  I’m worried it’ll be hanging round her neck forever - all just for around 7 months in Uni!  Thanks 

Hi
The interest rate charged should be RPI plus 3% for the duration of her studies, up until the April after she left her course.

From then, it will be a sliding scale of RPI only upto a maximum of RPI + 3%.

Make sure Student Finance have been given the correct study end date by her University or College as that can make all the difference sometimes. They might process a leavers notification in June for example, and may mistakenly put that date as the last date of attendance when the student may have left in March. This could have the impact of charging RPI + 3% incorrectly until the following April when, because the student actually left the previous March, it should have been the April before.

To the meat of your question, I'm not a financial advisor, so I won't give you advice on what you should or shouldn't do. Instead, I'll remind you that your daughter's loan is Income Contingent, i.e. she will obly ever repay the balance IF she earns above a set threshold, and even then will only repay a static 9% of her earnings above that threshold.

Yes interest will continue to accrue while there is a loan balance, but she need only repay until the terms of the Regulations that govern the repayment of that type of student loan.

If there is any remaining loan balance after a certain period of time, or at certain set events (loan cancellation) then any remaining balance will be cancelled under the terms of the Agreement.

In short, especially at these difficult times, if it was me, I would not be repaying more than I had to.

**please keep in mind this is the standard loan repayment process. If your daughter has been informed she has an overpayment, this portion of the funding needs to be repaid immediately, or at least an arrangement agreed to repay it in instalments**

Disclaimer: not an expert

sheramber

SFSLExpert said:

sheramber said:

Have you checked that Student Finance have  the correct details for you, including your  NI number?
 Could they be confirming the income of the wrong person.

Incredibly unlikely unless the person had the exact same name and DoB. HMRC would return what is called a mismatch instead of verifying income information for a random, unrelated third party.

Disclaimer: not an expert

 You have more faith in HMRC  than I have( ex employee )  If checking the employers records it may be only the NI number that is used . I wrong  digit  is all it would take to mix up information.

[Deleted User]

Not more faith, seems just a better understanding of the link between HMRC and SLC; also former employee.

I understand what you mean though, not necessarily always even a wrong digit - seen instances of duplicated numbers for different folk, but that's less about HMRC and more of DWP and their creation and allocation process.

The fact still remains though that HMRC will only return a positive result, i.e. income figures, if the nsme, DoB and National Insurance Number match for that person.

Disclaimer: not an expert

drakhan

I believe that i can reclaim ALL of my student loan.
I lived in Scotland until 2006 and was at Paisley University (now West of Scotland University) as a mature student after 2001.
I moved to England then started paying my student loan but recently found out that i was exempt from tuition fees as A) I attended Scottish university (Scots born and living in Paisley) and I attended as a mature student but didnt finish the course so i shouldnt have needed to pay ANY fees. This is stated on gov.uk website.
The payments were made to SLC England not SLC Scotland and they shouldnt have.
How can i reclaim the money.