HELP Student loan repayment whilst overseas

alialbabe

Hi there

My fiance and I are in an overseas country on a Working Holiday Visa. My fiance has a student loan taken out in 1999 of around 8-9K GBP.
They have recently written to him at his UK address demanding 200 GBP a month. They initially wrote and asked where he was, as they could find no record of him in the UK. He replied explaining he was travelling and living off his own savings. They wrote again saying that wasn't good enough and they want to know if he's working and how much he's earning and if he doesn't tell them, they will just take out 200 GBP of his UK bank account (which has no money in it).
He has not previously been making repayments to SLC as he has never earned over the threshold amount. But now he is working here (which he hasn't yet told them) but is obviously getting paid in another currency. And yes now he is earning over the threshold. In GBP equivalent, he's on around 22,500.

My question is, can they do this, take a random and quite high amount of 200 GBP out of his bank account?
Also, is there a set amount you have to pay back? And if so, what is the minimum payment? Because it appears as though they're being quite angry and are going to take random large amounts whenever they feel like it.

I would really appreciate anyone's advice on this, we have no idea of the rights he has and a Google search has not yielded many helpful results.

Thank you

devildog

As he is now earning over the threshold then he should be repaying his debt. They will look at what he is earning and make their calculations based on what he needs to live on, in the country he is currently residing. http://www.studentloanrepayment.co.uk/portal/page?_pageid=93,6678668&_dad=portal&_schema=PORTAL

Collieheartsyou

Hi there,

They can take the money out of your English bank account if you don't declare. The thresholds are different for every country and will be in the currency of that country (for example, the threshold for France is 18,000€). A declaration form must be filled in and sent to the SLC before end of Feb and they will calculate the repayments. This repayment must be paid every month before 20th. You can either set up a direct debit (that must come from an english bank account and so your BF would have to transfer money home every once in a while) or they can make the repayments manually through the website. Statements etc will be sent to your address overseas once you declare it.

If you do not declare before the end of Feb they will place penalty payments on your account of £250 which is the max repayment amount. So it's best to declare obviously.