SLC/Erudio HELP!

Sorted321

Hi,
I would really appreciate advice from anyone who has had a similar problem or is knowledgeable about SLC & Erudio and their policies/processes.

Background:
I took out a student loan with SLC in 1997. My last payment from them was in January 1998 as I did not complete the course. The loan totalled around 1k. I never deferred the loan or paid off any of the debt and at the last count (around 2012) I still owed the debt and had accrued around £800 arrears. Fast forward to 2021 and I now wish to pursue an MA. I applied for student finance but was unable to secure it as I have a flag on my account due to arrears from this 1997 debt.

I contacted SLC and asked how much I owed and how much the arrears are now? I was informed that I will have to contact Erudio for all account information. I am happy to do so but I would like to have a bit more knowledge before I do, as I gather that Erudio are not a very nice company to deal with!

Please note: I do not have a copy of the original loan agreement and I do not know what the status of the account is with Erudio. They have never contacted me since the debt was sold in 2014. SLC have my current address but I have never had any correspondence.

What I would like to know is:

1.If I contact Erudio by telephone will I start the clock ticking again on what is a statute barred debt?

2.Will I be able to pay off the arrears and leave the original debt still owing and then defer on the original debt?

3. I have read that old-style student debt that I have is written off after 25 years - will I be able to have this debt written off once I have cleared the arrears? ( I earn under the 28k threshold & Sept 2022 will be 25 years from the date that I had the first loan payment

4. If I send the SLC a SAR, will they still have details of the original debt and how much I owed when it was sold to Erudio?

5. Once I have paid off the arrears/loan, how long does it take for the flag to be removed from my SLC record so that I can then access further student finance? 

I appreciate any advice regarding this matter.

Thank you for your help and let me know if you need further information.

BW,

kaMelo

Any student loan which is defaulted never gets written off, ever. It's one of the condition you said you read and agreed to when you took it out. The only way to clear the student loan is to pay if off completely.
The good news is that even though the loan will never be written off, as the student loan is pre. September 98 it can become statute barred. If you have not made any acknowledgement of the loan or payment upon it (from what you have said you haven't) then in the absence of a CCJ the loan is now statute barred. Whilst it exists and will always exist until repayment it now cannot be enforced so you don't have to pay anything back.

Now the bad news, if you want to do an MA you are going to have to either;
   Fund it yourself from the money you saved by non payment of your original student loan.
   Or,
   Pay off your original student loan in spite of it being statute barred to enable you to secure student loans for the MA.

I think they call that Hobson's Choice.

sourcrates

You have had as good an answer as your going to get above, but just to add, once a debt is statute barred, it remains so, it cannot be un barred, plus only written comms count as acknowledgement anyway.