I've been told by student loan company to pay £3045 by 7th November. Panic is not the word!

[Hidinginthebath]

Sorry posting here for traffic as didn't get a response in Money.

Erudio Student Loans manage my account. Got a letter today saying they are terminating my student loan agreement. The account went into arrears in 2014/15 because I had to flee domestic abuse and then my physically abusive exH withheld my post for a year, at this time the gOv sold my student loans to Erudio.

Sorted it and have been paying a monthly amount since; £100 per month in 2016 and then my contractual payment of £138 a month since 2017. They've just decided to end my agreement! I'm in shock. How on earth can I find £3045 in 20 days??

I think a good chunk of the smaller loans from back in the days when fees were only £1k to start off with, are held by women who had jobs for a few years (maybe nor reaching the repayment threshold) then became a SAHP with a wealthier partner. For many people in these circumstances the capital could easily be paid off in a lump sum from family assets. It's only not being paid off because the Ts&Cs allow the loan to never be paid off if you stick to the rules, making it free money.

Separately, a good chunk of people will have had some sort of inheritance lump sum at some point between the 1990s to now. No one is legally obliged to pay off their debt with such a windfall.

Erudio are doing their utmost to make it so much heartache and pain and hassle to get this free money that anyone who has any alternative won't bother, and will just pay it off in order to be free of them. This policy makes good business sense but is very tough on those who have no other options.

Ugh I hate erudio. I have one of their loans too, they are the worst kind of debt collectors imo.

They wrote to me recently and offered me to pay my loan off for about half of its total value. So it might be worth asking if that is an option for you? As a pp said you could then hopefully add the extra amount to your mortgage.

My plan is to keep on deferring for the next 5 years and it will get written off. With part time hours I am not likely to meet their threshold before then.

AFAIK if you can demonstrate that you have been, and still intend to, make the agreed repayments then all they are doing is wasting their own time.

No court will make you pay more than you can afford, especially if you are sticking to the agreed terms. The loan company are just fishing and trying to intimidate you - such things are frowned on by courts so please don't let them stress you out!

I've just looked at my bank. Since Jan 2016 ive paid £1000 towards the arrears as a voluntary agreement and then £1800 ish as contractual payments. The original loans were for living expenses, I worked PT when I had my DC's so only started working FT in 2015. So I've paid 50% of the programs now loan but still owe £3900 in total.

I don't want to get out of paying it back, I have been doing for over two years. I just don't want to pay 3k I can't afford!

It sounds like you are doing the right things. I agree with people saying try to get things in writing - phone calls are so hard to prove. May you can write them a letter sent by special delivery once you have bought your house if you do not hear from them before that asking for what they are saying in writing.

I must say reading this makes me think I did do the right thing in paying my daughters at university instead of htem taking the £1k a year fees loan (never mind their younger sibilings now). People say I am silly as they may never have to pay them back but it certainly avoids complications even if it is expensive for me to fund university. I know this is an old style loan which is different from the new 9% of salary ones, but under both systems you do incur a fair bit of debt once interest is added. It's very difficult for people and it hangs over them.

General with "debt" collection companies like this can be very nasty as a way to persuade people but if they want to recover money they need to issue a court claim so papers for that would come by post, you can then defend it and if you lose then and only then can they enforce it eg charging order of your house or sending in bailiffs. They should not be doing those latter things until it has been to a full hearing before a judge in relation to the debt. Lots of companies use debt collectors to pressure people but they would usually have to go through that full process of suing etc (or trying to make someone bankrupt).

I spoke to national debtline today. They were helpful and gave me good advice and says technically they CAN enforce termination of my account and recalling the balance of the account.

They advised me to try to unpick with Erudio why they didn't do this at the time but are trying to do it 2 years later when I have a payment plan in place.

They think that if they do persue it to the court stage the judge would see it as harassing someone who has a clear record of trying to paydown the debt but technically again, a charge could be placed on my house.

So still not entirely sure what to do. I'm worried about the 7th November deadline tbh as I am not 100% guaranteed to be completed on the house purchase by then. I'm not sure, but if I don't meet that deadline of final settlement, will that immediately show on my credit file?

Sick of my so called life!

I am so sorry. Can you get the 7th Nov delayed? Lloads of people trying to record debts give some kind of deadline and then they note it on their file or computer to take further action then but if someone writes asking for more time they might extend the time.

If you have exchanged contracts on the house but not completed you may be okay but I am not sure if lenders do additional searches between exchange and completion. Could you increase the mortgage by more being the full amount of student debt you owe and just pay it all off when you complete the house or are you already borrowing as much as you can? There might be other reasons liek Erudio writing off some debt not to pay it all off anyway

I think it's worth writing to them signed for first class.

State the payments you have made plus the additional payments towards the arrears. Ask them what they wish to achieve by taking you to court as you don't have the means to pay more and you don't currently own a property for them to put a charge against....

Hello - sorry to hear about this.

I would be arguing that they "waived" your breach of contract by allowing you to continue making payments. That means that even though you technically breached it (broke it) by going into arrears, they didn't act on that breach then (because they waived it) so it's too late to do so now.

Have a bit of a google and write them a strongly worded letter, which you attach as a PDF to an email and send in hard copy.

If you want to chat further feel free to PM me.

Thanks @ConfessionsOfTeenageDramaQueen

I have PM you

They cant get blood out of a stone. Go to CAB and offer them
A £1 a month, they can try take it further but unlikely if CAB involved.

How have you been getting on @Hidinginthebath?

I love all the posters who think it’s easy to just add onto a mortgage as if it’s super easy. Doing that affects the LTV which in turn affects the rate you can get. FTBs get some good offers for 95% mortgages so “adding on” another 3k would potentially take it above. Had I added 3k onto my mortgage I wouldn’t have been able to scrimp the extra for the deposit. It’s not always that simple.

OP, I hope you get it sorted

Ooh this is a bit worrying, how can you default on a student loan? Not asking to be goady but so I can avoid the same. It comes out of my wages before tax and fluctuates when I work overtime or get bonuses. I'm going on mat leave soon so I think my income will drop below the threshold, if they don't take payments for a while will I end up defaulting??

I graduated 2007

Completely different system then. You have Plan 1 loans, OP is talking about the previous mortgage style loans.

Just wait and keep paying them. They can’t find their arse with both hands, honestly. It’ll take them months to follow this up.

They seem to send letters six months late, usually containing a load of conflicting information, you ring, they tell you a completely different tale of shite, you make an agreement about what you’ll pay and, if you’re me, just go your own sweet way and pay what you intended to anyway.

I haven't heard back from them but went into storage yesterday to retrieve my paperwork and they sent me exactly the same letter in 2015, again demanding payment within 14 days. I wouldn't have had seen it until exH handed the bundle of post over a year later; so didn't panic.

I feel slightly better about that as they didn't take me to court 3 years ago I think the letters they send are scare tactics tbh.

Odd question I know but how have you got a mortgage with already having debt plan in place?

I suspect you're probably right tenorladybeaker.

MeTrebus the 'arrears' and my Student Loans don't show up on my credit file

I used a mortgage broker (my friends DH) to get me my mortgage as I was in my probationary period at work and he said there is nothing on my credit file. I informed the bank of my outgoings (inc the monthly repayment) and I passed the affordability no issues. I've got an 85% LTV offer too.

I don't think SLC when they had the loans registered it as a debt? Unclear though.

The SLC have a weird status, the repayments count as a cost which reduces mortgage affordability but the value owed doesn't count as a debt.

This is certainly the case for the original loans but not sure about the various revised once since?