Student loan company chasing me 10 years later? 16 December 2022 at 4:49PM edited 28 December 2022 at 10:54AM in Student MoneySaving 4 replies 562 views

jamieearltek

Hello, 
Hope someone can help me out, I went on a uni course back in 2013, it wasn’t for me, after around 6 lessons across 4 weeks, and I withdrew from the couse. Knowing I had incurred couse fees and a grant fee I thought nothing much more of it and knew “It will be paid back once I start earning enough”.

So in around 2018, I started with my first payments going to SLC coming out of my PAYE, thought great this is my balance being paid off. 

Sign in to my SLC account earlier this year, check all my details are up to date, and check my balance. It shows I had around £3,000 left to pay. I mean hard pill to swallow due to how little use I got from the couse, but I need to get on with it. 

Signed in about a week ago and realise I had made good progress and was down to £2,000. Then suddenly, I have a text and email from SLC saying “ You need to call us urgently in regards to the letter we have already sent you”. My address is correct and I have had no letters from them. Checked my account and there is no record of any letters. So I make contact to them, and they have informed me, 

that on top of that student loan, I actually also have two other amounts with them I need to pay I have £1,800 and £1,500 for a maintenance loan and grant. 

This is the first I have heard of these extra amounts from almost 10 years ago, I assumed it was all being paid off. I don’t really know if I was given this extra money, I have nothing to say I wasn’t to dispute this and probably 10 years ago and 18 year old me, this probably was given to me.

Do they have a legal right to chase me for this money so many years later?

Anything I can do to have this added onto my current loan and have it paid normally? I am at a bit of a loss, and don’t know why they have suddenly decided to chase me 10 years later. Worried this is going to have bigger issues, CCJ/Defaults. 


Any advice?

Jamie 

kaMelo

As a plan 2 student loan yes they can chase you for the money but you don't need to worry about a CCJ. They don't need to go down that route as they collect money due as a deduction from your salary.

Regarding tuition fees and maintenance loans;

The tuition fee for the part term you attended is payable in full to the University, it should be 25% of the annual fees. This is repayable by you under the normal repayment terms of your agreement.

The maintenance loan however is different and I'm assuming you only received the first tranche to cover the Autumn term. Up until the day you officially left your course any maintenance loan for that period is repayable under the normal terms of your student loan agreement. Any maintenance loan you received to cover days after you left your course is an overpayment. This is (according to the terms) repayable immediately but usually you would come to a separate repayment agreement. This is not contingent upon you reaching the earnings threshold, it will continue whether your earning or not as you're repaying money you weren't entitled to.

You also mention receiving a grant which are usually not repayable. Who issued you the grant, SLC or the University? You'll need to check whether there were any conditions attached to the grant like needing to complete the course or something like that and whether you needed to repay the grant if the conditions were not met..

For the reasons mentioned they cannot merge the amounts as they are repayable under different terms and conditions.
Tuition fee + maintenance loan you were entitled to are repayable under the normal terms (9% on earnings above threshold etc.)
Maintenance loan overpayment are repayable whether you're earning or not.
Grant, you'll need to check the terms of receiving the grant to see whether it's repayable or not.

silvercar

I've asked the forum team to move this to the student board.

 As student loans sometimes have different rules from standard loans there may be other useful advice.
As others have suggested, your student loan from the time after you officially left the course would be repayable outside of the standard student loan repayment scheme. I don't know whether the fact they have waited 10 years to chase has an impact on your liability or not.

kaMelo

Whilst it's the more appropriate forum it is pretty quiet over there, maybe if there were a sub-heading or link towards the student forum under "loans"  it would be helpful.

Unlike the pre '98 loans which can become statue barred, post '98 loans cannot as the repayment method agreed to is via deduction from salary. SLC therefore have no need to go through the legal process to get you to pay them, they already have the authority to take it.

The only way someone no longer becomes liable for any unpaid student loan is either the time period for repayment has elapsed or the loan gets written off for reasons such as terminal illness/death (unlike normal loans a student loan is not repayable from the estate) or you become permanently unable to work again.

I'd still be interested to hear from the OP if they come back, especially regarding the grant as I've not heard of grants being repayable before so it would be interesting to see why it would be in their case.

Taiko

Grants are, and always have been, repayable if a student leaves a course early. The amount paid would be calculated based on the full year, split into 3 payments, but entitlement on leaving is calculated back on a daily basis. Those overpayments are due immediately, so I'm surprised the OP wasn't chased sooner in all honesty. 

Not 100% sure about the statute-barred route, but then it could be argued that, with the PAYE deductions, there's some form of acknowledgement.