Repaying Student Loans 2009/10 guide discussion

MrsManda

sdavies1 wrote: »

I feel I will be paying my student loan of forever! What is the current interest on the student loan (something I was not told about when I got the loan out 7 years ago)!

prettygreentea wrote: »

I was not told about the interest either..!

How can you say you weren't told you'd be paying interest? You may not have been told immediately every time the interest rate changed but if you read the paperwork you should have realised that you'd be paying interest on your loans. On the back of your payment schedule it says that interest will be charged from when the money arrives in your account and it will be X subject to change.

Oldernotwiser

MrsManda wrote: »

How can you say you weren't told you'd be paying interest? You may not have been told immediately every time the interest rate changed but if you read the paperwork you should have realised that you'd be paying interest on your loans. On the back of your payment schedule it says that interest will be charged from when the money arrives in your account and it will be X subject to change.

How people can manage to be university students and not know this is just beyond me!

iz007

Not sure if anyone else has experienced this issue but here goes....

I had a letter from SLC early May to say I was close to paying off my student loan and was now eligible to switch to direct debit (DD) payments.

So I called them up. First annoying thing, the letter they send you with the number on the top to phone no longer works! After the message getting the new number I re dialled. Anyway, it was short lived because they needed my P60 to work out how much I have paid in the 2009/2010 tax year. Fair enough.

Anyway, I got my P60 today, so I called them up again. They now tell me they can’t switch me over to DD as it will take them too long to set up and I will have paid off the loan by then! By my estimations I have about 6/7 months left to pay off (not sure why it takes so long to set up a DD, I thought it was a 5min thing). I did question why they sent me a letter telling me I could switch to DD then!!

So they said it was because I only had a small amount left to pay so what I have to do is continue to pay through my wages and then in Nov/Dec send them photocopies of all my wage slips from April 2010 - Nov/Dec 2010 and they will apply the payments to my account and send me a refund for the over payment.

It's just annoying the process and I have tried to used the SLC website but it will only give you your annual balance (i.e. when the payment is received from the Inland Revenue) so it's not really a current balance at all.

It seems daft you have to overpay and then claim it all back. One of the reasons I was so keen to switch to DD is that the SLC get the money instantly rather than the Inland Revenue holding on to it for a year.

Does anyone have any experience of this? Am I allowed to tell my employer to stop taking student loan deductions and set up a monthly standing order to SLC myself? Ideally I would prefer this as at least the money gets to the SLC straight away.

milliebear00001

Hi there

I have a SL from 1993-1997 and have, in the past, repaid some of them and deferred. I am currently deferred, but am working. Having worked out my income before my new Tax Credits Award was finalised, I calculated I would be just under the income threshold this tax year. Unfortunately, my new tax credit award is considerably higher than I'd expected it to be and so my income will actually now take me over the threshold. Will I need to let them know my income for the year is now expected to be higher, and start repaying my loans?
Thanks.

iz007

iz007 wrote: »

Not sure if anyone else has experienced this issue but here goes....

I had a letter from SLC early May to say I was close to paying off my student loan and was now eligible to switch to direct debit (DD) payments.

So I called them up. First annoying thing, the letter they send you with the number on the top to phone no longer works! After the message getting the new number I re dialled. Anyway, it was short lived because they needed my P60 to work out how much I have paid in the 2009/2010 tax year. Fair enough.

Anyway, I got my P60 today, so I called them up again. They now tell me they can’t switch me over to DD as it will take them too long to set up and I will have paid off the loan by then! By my estimations I have about 6/7 months left to pay off (not sure why it takes so long to set up a DD, I thought it was a 5min thing). I did question why they sent me a letter telling me I could switch to DD then!!

So they said it was because I only had a small amount left to pay so what I have to do is continue to pay through my wages and then in Nov/Dec send them photocopies of all my wage slips from April 2010 - Nov/Dec 2010 and they will apply the payments to my account and send me a refund for the over payment.

It's just annoying the process and I have tried to used the SLC website but it will only give you your annual balance (i.e. when the payment is received from the Inland Revenue) so it's not really a current balance at all.

It seems daft you have to overpay and then claim it all back. One of the reasons I was so keen to switch to DD is that the SLC get the money instantly rather than the Inland Revenue holding on to it for a year.

Does anyone have any experience of this? Am I allowed to tell my employer to stop taking student loan deductions and set up a monthly standing order to SLC myself? Ideally I would prefer this as at least the money gets to the SLC straight away.

In case anyone is interested, I have an update on this. Not happy with the response I got from the SLC in the morning, I phoned them again in the afternoon. I was very polite (Martin would be proud) and asked them to explain why it would take 6 months to set up a DD. Anyway, after taking my details and again working out my current balance they have now agreed to issue a stop notice to my employer and allow me to pay the final payments via DD. So I got the resolution in the end but not without trying!!

Poolie

milliebear00001 wrote: »

Hi there

I have a SL from 1993-1997 and have, in the past, repaid some of them and deferred. I am currently deferred, but am working. Having worked out my income before my new Tax Credits Award was finalised, I calculated I would be just under the income threshold this tax year. Unfortunately, my new tax credit award is considerably higher than I'd expected it to be and so my income will actually now take me over the threshold. Will I need to let them know my income for the year is now expected to be higher, and start repaying my loans?
Thanks.

You only need to update SLC when the deferrment for is issued each year.

meet_mark_ford

Tried to sign the recommended petition against student loan interest deferring inflation tracking only to discover that;

"The new administration is currently assessing how best to proceed with the e-petitions service.",

thus not allowing me to sign despite the closing date not being until 3rd June 2010.

I've sent an email to Number 10 to try and find out why this is - particularly as it's impeding our democratic right to petition the government. It may well be a technical issue, but it needs to be corrected as all other petitions seem to be closed to new signatures at the moment.

Poolie

You can still petetion the government and parliament via your MP. The e-petition was a new idea to allow people to express their views to the former government which were ignored.

bobwalsh

Re - Paying off student loans

Hi, I

bobwalsh

Student Loans company

Hi, I would like some advice as to where I stand with the SLC. Ok here goes:

In Jan 2007 I received a final annual statement from the slc - not a demand for payment.
Now this is where is gets interesting, I left the uk to live in Australia in August 2007 and advised the SLC that I was doing this.

I received a letter from slc on 19/6/07 to confirm they had received notification that I had left the UK on 22/7/07. This was sent to my uk address and was forwarded to me by a family member. They asked me to complete & return an income assessment form, which I did and at the same time informed them of the contact address for me in Australia.

on 13/9/07 I received a letter from slc to the address in Australia I was at at the time to advise they had received my income assessment form and that I was not expected to make any payments for the next 12 months and that they would contact me in approx 10 months to reasses repayments for the following year.

On 11/10/07 I sent them a letter too advise my new address in Australia as I moved.

Then on 12/9/08 I received a letter from SLC to advise details of my reference number to access online.

Then on 22/9/08 I received another letter from them to advise password and secret answer for the repayment portal.

This is all of the correspondence I have received from them at my address in Australia.

Now they have started to send letters to my parents address in the uk, which they have only lived at for 2 years and I have NEVER lived there or notified them that I live there. They sent a letter on 24/12/09 again to advise the same that they advised in the letter I received on 12/9/08. Now they have sent another letter to my parents address dated May 2010 - annula statemnet - not a demand for payment.

Why would they be sending letters to my parents address when I have previously advised them of my new address in Australia and they have sent letters to me at this address?

What do I need to do??
Help as I am really annoyed at their incompetence!! :-(