Being chased for student loan overpayments

Beanymoneysaver

My son was briefly at Uni (6 months) before taking an apprenticeship instead. Since leaving he has received letters from Student Loans Company saying he was overpaid his grant/loan and needs to make 'voluntary' payments to pay that back.
He paid these for a while however as he is now making payments through his salary also he doesn't want to make these 'voluntary' payments also but is receiving threatening letters and hounding phone calls re setting up a payment plan for these. They do state they a 'voluntary' but we are concerned about this hounding and get no proper answers from SLC when we speak to them whether he does in fact HAVE to pay these and whether action can be taken against him if he doesn't....
HELP!! I'm sure loads of you must have had this.... Can they take action? Does he have to repay this also? Will it affect his credit rating if he doesn't?

sheramber

Student Finance recalculate what he is due to receive according to the time he attended university. They then compare that with what he has received The difference is the overpayment and is payable right away.

the money that he correctly received is payable when his income reaches the limit set.

i don't think they can add the overpayment to the salary payments.

Beanymoneysaver

But can they make him repay the overpayment? as it says voluntary repayments for that? And if he doesn't can they chase that in the same way as a commercial debt and will it affect his credit rating?

sheramber

He would agree to repay any overpayment on the form he signed to get his Student Finance.

'Voluntary' means the payments are not refundable as opposed to the repayments taken from his income which can be refunded if, at the end of the year, more has been paid than is necessary. This can happen if the income drops during the year and the annual total is less than the required amount for repayment to be due.


SLC is under a statutory obligation to recover any grant overpayment which is identified. The
current statutory provisions can be found in Regulation 119 of The Education (Student Support)
Regulations 2011, with similar provisions being in previous Student Support Regulations. SLC
seeks to recover all grant overpayments from all customers identified as receiving a grant
overpayment. These payments are collected by direct payments.

Beanymoneysaver

Thank you

ShannonP_

I had a similar issue - I was paid my student grant in 2014 and then in 2017 upon completion of my final year at university SLC said I was not entitled to this grant and therefore had to pay it back.

After weeks of arguing my case they said I had to agree to a payment plan before they took further actions to recover the money. I now pay a £20 direct debit to them each month.

So yes it does appear that they are entitled to recover these over payments!

Have a good day :-)