Repaying Student Loans 2009/10 guide discussion

Poolie

RoseRed wrote: »

I've just been checking out my husbands student loan and it will be paid off in his March pay ( well all except £4 but I'll pay that by card). I saw it mentioned in Martins article that if you have less than 2 years repayments left you can opt to pay by direct debit instead of wage deduction? Has anyone any experience of this?

I'm concerned about them taking an age to stop taking the money as we could really do with it to clear our remaining debt.

Many thanks for any help.

Ask your husband to call SLC to give them the details of the payments. That way they can use the predictor to accurately stop the payments via his salary. If they attempt to do it via the direct debit method he could still end up over paying.

Poolie

masterbiker wrote: »

Hey All,

I was a Scottish student that studied in England, so have an approx 10k student loan.

I also have a bit of credit card debt in the Uk, which I am just about able to pay off fine each month (about 6k). Most of the time I am able to pay them a bit more than they request each month.

I am currently living and working in Ireland.

The Student Loans Company want me to pay about 9% of my income. Because of the credit card debt I am worried they are going to ask for more money that I can currently afford to pay them and pay my CC repayments.

So my question is, If they ask me to pay back more than I can afford, am I legally allowed to tell them "I can afford to pay you X amount a month and no more"?

Thanks for the help

Are you in Southern Ireland and paid in Euros? Do you pay in UK Income Tax?

SLC will ask you to pay 9% above the £15,000 repayment threshold. If the money is taken directly from your salary then you will be able to negogiate as it is done by your employer. Any adjustment from the standard could result in serious penalities for them.

If your overseas (ie Southern Ireland), then you could send them in a statement of affairs but they may not take this likely and will still ask you to pay the standard amount of repayment as they will not be concern that you took out extra credit card debits.

Oldernotwiser

masterbiker wrote: »

The Student Loans Company want me to pay about 9% of my income.

9% of your earnings over £15,000, not of your total income. Unless you're very well paid, this will not be a substantial amount.

masterbiker

Thanks for the help all

Art_of_Living

Hi I took out a loan in '93 got ill took a year out then continued my studies.
I have had several large gaps in my employment.

1.Can they make the charges stick if you didn't fill out a deferment letter even if you were unemployed ?
2.If you are only earning under 10,000 a year but didn't fill out a defer form ?
3.If you can plead with H & M Customs and show that you haven't earned and pay the necessary tax's why can you not with Student Loans.
4. All / over 50% of my charges are when I was earning less than the payback amount.
5. I'm thinking if going to Court, Do you know of anybody that has ?

Many thanks for any replies in advance.

Poolie

Art_of_Living wrote: »

Hi I took out a loan in '93 got ill took a year out then continued my studies.
I have had several large gaps in my employment.

1.Can they make the charges stick if you didn't fill out a deferment letter even if you were unemployed ?
2.If you are only earning under 10,000 a year but didn't fill out a defer form ?
3.If you can plead with H & M Customs and show that you haven't earned and pay the necessary tax's why can you not with Student Loans.
4. All / over 50% of my charges are when I was earning less than the payback amount.
5. I'm thinking if going to Court, Do you know of anybody that has ?

Many thanks for any replies in advance.

1 - They can apply charges to your account if you a) failed to make any repayments or b) failed to complete the deferment process.
2 - Deferment threshold for pre 1998 loans is £26449 therefore you should be able to defer repayments.
3 - Please provide more information as you can't really plead with HMRC as they are very strict about the taxation rules.
4 - Deferment of your loan is your responsibility and you could have applied for deferment and had it back dated up to 3 months,
5 - If you go to court you may find that you won't have a leg to stand on as you did take the money in accordance with the Consumer Credit Act. The Court could enforce a higher repayment method.

You would contact SLC and get a deferment form completed and have take the 3 months backdating to remove some of the charges. They you could look at a proper repayment plan with SLC rather than threatening them with court action as your not likely to win.

fulhamnonny

Happy New year everyone!

Quick question..

I've got a post 1998 student loan, yet I've not recieved a statement from the SLC in about a year if not more. I don't know how much I've got left to pay.

I've been making extra payments from a period where my deductions were not coming out and where over the past year I've not worked.

Shall i contact the SLC and ask for a statement? Will they tell me how much i currently have over the phone?

Poolie

When did you last have a statement?

When did you stop working? Statements are only produced on receipt of payments from HMRC or once it is believed all the payments are received a £0 file will be created to generate statements later in the in year for those who didn't make any repayments.

You can contact SLC but they will not be able to send you a newer statement. They should be able to tell you over the phone the balance, just make sure you have any payslips where you have had deductions since your last statement just to make sure. If you haven't had any deductions from your salary and only voluntary repayments then SLC will be able to tell you straight away.

Oldernotwiser

Art_of_Living wrote: »

Hi I took out a loan in '93 got ill took a year out then continued my studies.
I have had several large gaps in my employment.

1.Can they make the charges stick if you didn't fill out a deferment letter even if you were unemployed ?
2.If you are only earning under 10,000 a year but didn't fill out a defer form ?
3.If you can plead with H & M Customs and show that you haven't earned and pay the necessary tax's why can you not with Student Loans.
4. All / over 50% of my charges are when I was earning less than the payback amount.
5. I'm thinking if going to Court, Do you know of anybody that has ?

Many thanks for any replies in advance.

If you didn't defer correctly then you will not only have the loan repayments to make for that period but also extra interest and charges.

You can ask to pay these over a period of time but they will not be repaid under the gentle repayment schedule allowed for repaying the actual loan.

fulhamnonny

Poolie,

I last had a statement from the SLC I think around the end of 2009.
The statements I usually get from the SLC is as you say a detail of the payments made.

I know from the last statement I have, which shows how much I've paid up until the end of the tax year in 2009. I can only guess I still have 2-3 years of paying it off before it's clear.

I was briefly not working for almost 3 months only quite recently - between the end of Sept 10 to the start of Dec 10.

I've been making the extra payments for over a year and in mid Nov 10, finished paying in, what should have been taken out of my wages for the 6 month period nothing was being taken.

In the past year I've changed jobs 3 times, and i've always checked my payslips to make sure student loan deductions are being made, as I want to clear it! If not, I usually mention something to the payroll team for the companies I've worked for and made another extra payment to cover the amount that should have been taken from my wages.