Legal Advice for Student Loan payment

Kokunutz

Hi, Following the recent reports about overpayments of student loans, I do have a situation I would like some advice and support with.  
I was at University from 1996-1998. and as you can expect I had student loans during this time.  After leaving University in my second year into my three year degree, as I was offered a full time job and decided my future was not in further education. During this time, I was regularly reporting my earnings to the Student Loans to confirm I did not meet the threshold. 

Then in 2000, I was offered a job in Dubai which I accepted, but unfortunately I did not inform Student Loans I was moving abroad. It was only after three years overseas when I returned to visit the UK, I was was made aware from the letters I received that my Student Loans had defaulted and it was now with the debt recovery company.  I tried to communicate with Student Loans to resolve the issue, but they basically refused to budge on the fact I had defaulted by not informing them sooner.  I explained I could provide proof of my pay in Dubai that still meant I did not meet the threshold criteria for repayments, but I was willing to pay off some of the debt.

They still refused, and even when I returned to Dubai for work, I still tried to communicate with them and then the debt recovery company to inform them of the situation and to hold off any actions to retrieve the monies.  As I reported my parents home as correspondence address, the debt recovery company turned up at my parents door on two occasions asking for me and for repayment of the student loans.

I was so stressed by the situation, I felt I had no choice but to ay off the loan all together.  So I has to borrow and beg for the monies and paid the Student Loans directly in two large payments.

I feel this is extremely unjust to have been pursued in such a way, even after I reported and updated my circumstances.

My question is, was Student Loans justified in this action, or is there any recourse I can take?

Many thanks in advance for any feedback or advice on this matter. 

voluted

You are required to inform them if you go overseas for more than 3 months. You didn't do this so defaulting you seems like a perfectly reasonable course of action. This would be no different to any other loan which offers deferments (the old Career Development Loans spring to mind.) If you wish to defer in some respect you need to make them aware. Simply being eligible for a deferment isn't enough, you actually need to tell them.

I don't think they've acted unreasonably. You could have come to an arrangement to pay off the defaulted debt in instalments (and it wouldn't continue to attract interest which is a bonus) rather than pay it off in two lump sums. But as it has now been paid that option is no longer available.

Tucosalamanca

When you signed the student loan, you agreed to the very clear terms and conditions, you then later ignored them.
Didn't you (or your parents) open the mail for three years when SLC were making enquiries?

Actions (or lack of them) often have consequences, as you have found out.

This chain of events was completely avoidable and responsibility lies entirely with you.
Where is the injustice and what have SLC done wrong?

All this happened over twenty years ago, what are you hoping to achieve?

user1977

You took out a loan, you repaid it about 20 years ago. What sort of "recourse" are you talking about?

Kokunutz

Hi, Thank you all for the responses.  Very much appreciated as I hoped to get a dialogue going so anyone in a similar position as myself can learn from it (They're learning just by coming to this website!).

The question I have lingering is in was the Student Loans right to decline my request to start making repayments or to arrange a repayment plan.  They stated I needed to pay the whole amount in full and no option for a repayment plan.  I also asked the question to the debt recovery company and they also refused saying they understood my situation but the Student Loans Company were unwilling to accept any payment plans. 
 
I just feel this was over the top tactics to retrieve monies and the real question for those wishing clarification of "recourse" is:
Was it lawful for this to happen?
Should I have taken a different approach?
Was there any legal protection/advise I could have sought?
Many thanks, 

voluted

Kokunutz said:

Hi, Thank you all for the responses.  Very much appreciated as I hoped to get a dialogue going so anyone in a similar position as myself can learn from it (They're learning just by coming to this website!).

The question I have lingering is in was the Student Loans right to decline my request to start making repayments or to arrange a repayment plan.  They stated I needed to pay the whole amount in full and no option for a repayment plan.  I also asked the question to the debt recovery company and they also refused saying they understood my situation but the Student Loans Company were unwilling to accept any payment plans. 
 
I just feel this was over the top tactics to retrieve monies and the real question for those wishing clarification of "recourse" is:
Was it lawful for this to happen?
Should I have taken a different approach?
Was there any legal protection/advise I could have sought?
Many thanks, 

They can refuse a repayment plan if they wish.

From my experience with one of the two banks offering CDLs, the government are extremely strict and will follow their rules to a T. I suspect people expect them to be more amenable than financial institutions in this regard however they're anything but. HMRC are well known for bankrupting people over debt owed to them for example, something which typically nobody else bothers with.

By refusing a repayment plan they're either going to take it to court, where a judge would allow it if you could not afford to pay it in a lump sum, or they'd sell the debt to a debt buyer who would bite your hands off for a reasonable repayment offer. IME from CDLs, the government just wants to get shut of bad debt, it doesn't want it lingering around so I suspect they'd have sold it to a debt buyer who you could have negotiated with.

However, this was all 20+ years ago. I think you need to let this go.

TripleH

The other point is that 1996 to 1998 students are in a different world to those starting in 1998 as we didn't have tuition fees to pay.so the setup is different for loans.

user1977

Kokunutz said:

I just feel this was over the top tactics to retrieve monies and the real question for those wishing clarification of "recourse" is:
Was it lawful for this to happen?
Should I have taken a different approach?
Was there any legal protection/advise I could have sought?
Many thanks, 

What would you like the end result to be? Ultimately you would (I hope) have paid off the loan by now anyway, and if it took longer then you would have paid even more interest. You haven't mentioned having suffered any sort of loss from what happened (which does appear to have been triggered by you choosing to go AWOL for three years).

born_again

TBH. Looking at the MSE link to this

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/students/student-loan-overpayment-refund/

There is nothing covering your situation. As you left the country & as such defaulted on the loan.