Student loans and moving abroad

dinkylou

From the SLC website.

'You will be obliged by law to repay your loan in accordance with the regulations. You will also be legally obliged to provide certain information to SLC and the HM Revenue & Customs (previously known as the Inland Revenue), and to keep records of your income. If you do not meet these obligations financial penalties may be imposed on you.'

Am assuming that this will mean legal proceedings after a period of time.

Save yourself the hassle and just pay it off.

lynzpower

Quite right climbgirl, Ive lost count of the amount of people that Ive come accross that thought the move would be permanent, and now theyve come back.

Annie_Fanny

climbgirl wrote:

The morality of not intending to pay it back aside, you say that you have no intention of coming back to the UK. That's all well and good, but you have no idea what the future holds and how well things are going to work out for you wherever you're going. And if you do have to come back and work again, you'll get stung for not arranging to make repayments.

Excellent point climbgirl. Your prospects abroad may be better in some areas of your life but life has a habit of biting you on the ar*e when you least expect it and you may need to return to the UK at some point. People move to other countries for all sorts of reasons but they other do not think about 'the importants' like the standard of health care you get outside the UK, benefits, employment rights, etc etc etc.

Don't be a fool. Take the interest you have raised from keeping the loans in a high interest account and give the money back!

**purpleprincess**

My brother in law moved to Sweden and they traced him there (he was sorting out all his paperwork etc to tell them but they found him first!) so I wouldn't count on them not finding you.

Pay your DEBT back. As a young person (21) having to work full time and pay for myself to study I feel a bit miffed about people getting student loans that my taxes have contributed to and talking about not paying it back. What's this about a "free loan" you've got to be joking!!!

heyhumm

I think the majority of posters in this thread are overreacting and becoming unneccessarily confrontational.

All the OP is saying is that he is giong abroad and has a student loan debt. NOwhere has he said he won't tell the SLC that he's moved abroad, and once they know they will make arrangements to deduct money from his wages in that country.

His savings are his savings. There is nothing in the SLC terms and conditions of the loan which says they can take those from him. If he wants to pay his student loan off with his savings that is up to him.

We are moneysavers, and we're savvy. A savvy person will pay off his most expensive debt first and most people have a mortgage so that should always be paid off first if you have savings. It is not wise to pay off the student loan debt first, it has the lowest interest rate of any debt you will have in your life and you don't have to repay it until you earn over a certain threshold. It's the best debt to have and most people will have debts for the whole of their lives so it's better to have that one than the others.

When I finish University I will have £30k of student loan debt. This is through no fault of me own, it's through professionally recognised health problems and changes of my course meaning I have spent 7 years at university doing a four year masters course.

I simply cannot pay this back before 65 years of age (when it gets wiped) unless I earn a great deal of money and I would like to move abroad. Listening to you, it's almost as though I am commiting some moral crime. I have every intention of paying the money back but will pay it back under the student loan terms, ie 9% of my income above £15k etc and whatever that is in the country I choose to go. You cannot blame me for wanting to move abroad, look at the price of houses in this country. By going abroad I avoid getting into debt.

You don't get a badge of honour for having paid your student loan debt back quickly, you get a badge of honour for sticking to the terms and conditions of the loan and the terms and conditions of the loan mean that alot of people simply won't pay it off quickly and there is nothing there which says you can't move abroad.

You should just look at it as being on a higher rate of income tax because that's effectively what it is. All those who have paid it off quickly realise they have not helped themselves when they realise how large a mortgage they will have to get by staying in this country.

Which one would you prefer? A higher mortgage and no slc debt or a lower mortgage + a student loan debt?

If you get into health problems and have that mortgage you may find that paying off your student loan debt early makes you homeless.

http://www.direct.gov.uk/EducationAndLearning/UniversityAndHigherEducation/StudentFinance/RepayingStudentLoansPost1998/RepayingStudentLoansPost1998Articles/fs/en?CONTENT_ID=10034872&chk=gBEphU

is what you should be reading

Floss

mra1234 wrote:

Because I am not intending on returning to the UK. The debt would only be paid back via inland revenue taking 9% of my income directly from my wages should I be working in the UK. If I am not in the UK then it basically in my theory would be as though I was not earning an income and would therefore not have to pay anything. The SLC relies on you declaring your income and setting up some sort of payment to the UK when abroad.

So while my 2 DS's are repaying their student loans of £45k+ in total, you will be informing the SLC of your every move & repaying your loans? :rolleyes:

Now why haven't you told us that your intention is to contact them & tell them your new details? Could that be because you don't intend to? Or are you not big enough to accept that what you are contemplating is wrong, and that other posters are correct when they say this is theft?

Perhaps you should reconsider your position.

rubyrooster

You just prompted me to look into informing the SLC of my own travels actually. Take a look at http://www.direct.gov.uk/EducationAndLearning/UniversityAndHigherEducation/StudentFinance/RepayingStudentLoansPost1998/RepayingStudentLoansPost1998Articles/fs/en?CONTENT_ID=10034872&chk=gBEphU
It gives you all the information you need, and the people on the helpline are really good. You need to request and fill in an overseas assessment form, and they'll deal with it from there.

Just found out that in the last 4 years I have paid off less than £1000. The pay 9% of your income after you earn £15 thing means I barely pay more than the interest. Shocking stuff. The yearly statements are useless and they do no chasing. When I am back from my travels I will definitely be saving like crazy and paying it off quicker!

JenIttels

heyhumm wrote:

...
All the OP is saying is that he is giong abroad and has a student loan debt. NOwhere has he said he won't tell the SLC that he's moved abroad, and once they know they will make arrangements to deduct money from his wages in that country.
...
"When I finish University I will have £30k of student loan debt. This is through no fault of me own, it's through professionally recognised health problems and changes of my course meaning I have spent 7 years at university doing a four year masters course."
...

Couple of points.

I think the OP sounded like he did not intend on informing the SLC of his income abroad. I assume that's what other posters thought too. That is up for interpretation, clearly.

Secondly, "no fault of your own"??? I think you are either being naive or have used the wrong turn of phrase!! You spent it, now you need to pay it back. Personal circumstances which affect finances are a shame but i'm afraid you have to take responsibility for the spending of £30k regardless.

Not that any of my post has much bearing on your point. I'm going abroad soon and am narked that it looks like i'm going to get screwed over on loan repayments due to conversion rates. I'm still going to inform the SLC though as those are the terms i agreed to when i borrowed money from them.

Edited to add: I'd give a badge to anyone who had repaid their loan early just due to being impressed with their self-discipline btw

cupid_s

Me and hubby took out a combined total of about £20000 student loan. We are still students doing post-grad degrees so aren't paying it off yet but at the end of each year we owe almost £400 more than we did at the beginning so that's incentive for us to start paying it off asap (after [aying a lump sum off our mortgage of course)

My sister has moved abroad and has only just started to be in a position where she will have to start paying her loan off, but already she owes over £2000 more than when she finished her degree!
Standard payment rate for abroad is £245 per month and they can take this directly from your wages overseas apparently. If you fill out all the info properly they will work out what you can afford as they would here so you're paying a fair amount.

But all in all, the longer you go without paying the more you owe, and they will find out where you are and can take £245 per month from you which is very steep in my opinion.

It really does pay to tell them everything and start paying as soon as you can. Not least cos it's dishonest not to!

james32_uk

The student loan company can go swival. What other kind of lending company would be able to get away with one poxy statement a year. Not even a call to their customer services can get you an up-to-date total amount outstanding. You have to wait until the out-of-date annual statement arrives. I'm still waiting for my one from April of this year.