Student loan-chased after 18 years!

timetogrowup_2

Please help!

I have received a letter from a company called 'Credit Solutions Ltd' in my maiden name requesting repayment of 2 student loans taken out in 1990 and 1991. They total just over £1300, then have interest/charges added of around £400.
The letter states that 'immediate payment is necessary to prevent the account falling further into arrears on the above payment due date. Should you fail to pay, we will request field agents to call upon you to collect the debt or to ascertain your financial circumstances.
Failure to contact us could result in our recommendation for the commencement of legal action to recover payment for the total outstanding balance. Should this action be necessary you will incur an additional liability in respect of legal costs and interest.'

I appreciate that I have been remiss in not paying this back, however, I have married and moved away from where I went to Uni since 1991, and have had no correspondence with SLC since then.

Where do I stand legally? Your help would be very much appreciated, as quite frankly, I cannot afford to pay this back and the thought of it is making me ill. Thanks!

olly300

With SLC you agreed to keep them up dated with your changes of address.

However go to the consumeractiongroup's website (use google) and do a search for "student loans" as due to the date you took out your loans, your actually loans may fall under to the statue of limitations.

iolanthe07

I have a feeling that student loans don't fall under the statute of limitations, but worth a try. They may claim that you are at fault because you did not tell the SLC when you changed address.

olly300

iolanthe07 wrote: »

I have a feeling that student loans don't fall under the statute of limitations, but worth a try. They may claim that you are at fault because you did not tell the SLC when you changed address.

There is a debate on the consumeraction group about this.

Apparently the first lot of student loans may fall under the statue of limitations due to the terms and conditions of the loans plus the Act not being written clearly, however they soon cleaned the law up to definitely ensure later ones don't. I can't remember the dates, but as the OP was in the first group of students to take loans out so it's worth a look.

ceebeeby

OP - I'm not very sympathetic ...

You borrowed the money, you knew you hadn't paid it back, you moved away without telling them where, now they've found you! It sounds like you were trying to get out of paying back the money you owed.

Morally at least (don't know about legally) from you've said, you owe them the money. Contact them asap (unless someone on here comes up with some sort of legal loophole for you) and try and establish an affordable payment scheme.