My son's massive student overdraft debt

Alfachats

Good afternoon all, 
Long story short, my son has dropped out from university mainly because he has a drug problem, this has come as a total shock for us and we have found out he has 6k of overdraft debt over 3 accounts, 1k with Lloyds, 2k with Natwest and 3k with Nationwide, the Lloyds account is a normal account so there is interest to pay, the other two are student accounts with free overdrafts.
We are at our wits end as what to do, its bad enough having to deal with his drug addition but his debts are a real additional worry for us, we don't have the funds to pay off his debts but can maybe offer a £100 a month payment.

Any advice would gratefully be accepted.

[Deleted User]

He needs to speak to the banks to arrange a repayment plan, which will likely include the freezing of interest.

Emmia

Also, at some point those student accounts will stop being interest free, as he's no longer a student - he needs to talk to the bank(s) to sort out a payment plan for each of the accounts. 

Edit: I'm assuming he's an adult, and whilst I can see you're worried, reeling from the drug revalalation and would bail him out if you had the cash (but you shouldn't) - I sort of think you need to offer him pointers e.g. talk to the bank about loan freezing etc. and then let him take responsibility for this. 

kazwookie

He needs to get it sorted, don't you take on his debt.

Is he able to get a job? he needs to talk to the banks.

Alfachats

kazwookie said:

He needs to get it sorted, don't you take on his debt.

Is he able to get a job? he needs to talk to the banks.

We don't have the money to pay his debts even if we wanted to, however Ive always given him (and his brother) £30 a week to help support them during uni, I've now stopped all payments to him but I am willing to use that money to help pay his debts until he can support himself again.

sleepyjones

I think the issue is by making these payments for him 1) he's not really learning a lesson and 2) you're freeing up his own money to potentially buy drugs with.
I think you just need to let him deal with this on his own.  Bit of tough love required in this scenario.
You could put away the £30 every week into a savings account and give it to him as a lump sum once he gets clean and has his life back on track, maybe help with buying a car or a deposit on a house or something down the line.

MinuteNoodles

Alfachats said:

We are at our wits end as what to do, its bad enough having to deal with his drug addition but his debts are a real additional worry for us, we don't have the funds to pay off his debts but can maybe offer a £100 a month payment.

Any advice would gratefully be accepted.

He's a grown adult and you can't afford it so leave him to suffer the consequences of his actions, he's not going to learn a damned thing whilst you bail him out. One thing about wrecking his credit history is he'll not be able to borrow money to get more drugs so in one way this is doing him a favour.

My kids have all had it drilled into them that they're adults and responsible for themselves now. I'll give them advice and have taught them about personal finance but they know if they were to end up in a mess like this don't come knocking on the door of the bank of mum and dad. I'm more than happy to give them advice on how to dig themselves out of it but they'll be doing the shovelling themselves.

Alfachats

Thanks for the parenting advice, has anyone actual got any advice or experience of how to deal with the banks in this situation?

[Deleted User]

The best thing to do is to get him to contact the banks and arrange a payment plan.

A few years ago I had a student overdraft that I was struggling to pay off, I contacted my bank and we ended up with an agreement that I’d pay £100 a month and they’d reduce the overdraft by £100 a month. 

It might be possible for something similar to be arranged.

DiamondLil

Alfachats said:

has anyone actual got any advice or experience of how to deal with the banks in this situation?

Alfachats, almost certainly the banks won't deal with you as your son is an adult and they will only discuss/deal with him.

No amount of you talking with the banks,  telling them of the true situation, will alter the fact that at the first opportunity they will lend him more. You will faithfully pay off his debts at, say, £100 per month, and once they see the regular payments coming in, proving that he is taking responsibity for the debt, they will increase his overdraft facility/credit limit and he'll carry on as he has been.

I truly hope I'm wrong in your case, but this was my experience.

After a few years of the same old, same old, the only people who listened were Cabot, who were amazingly helpful and put a plan in place. Which took years to pay off, but was paid off eventually.

You have a long, hard journey ahead and I wish you all the best.

sleepyjones

I don't think anyone is trying to be condescending or comment on your parenting, a lot of people go through financial hardship / aren't savvy to the ins and outs of credit and the role of your credit file, me included when I was younger.  It's not really something you think about when you're young so better education to credit is definitely needed, they should offer it in school as a week long course or something before they let kids out into the big wide world. But that's a different discussion.

With the banks, you won't be able to speak to them, you'll need to get him to do that.  He would just need to call them, or if you want to help him with it you could try and write an email through their website contact page,  explain the situation and ask what they can do to help ... see what they say and then maybe come back and see what your next options are.  We can't really offer any productive advice until he's spoken to the banks and know what they say,  just try and make sure you get everything in writing and don't agree to anything that he can't afford / knows he will struggle with.

From my experience, when I left Uni, I just carried on as normal with the student account and about a year later I got a letter saying they want their overdraft back ... I didn't have the money at the time so they "forced me" to take a loan to cover the overdraft, which of course, incurred interest.  This was 20 years ago, but that's how it was handled back then.