I owe independent school fees and they are ignoring my requests to pay by instalments

[FeesIssue]

My DC was at an independent school and I found recently that I could not afford to pay the fees any more in spite of her receiving a bursary. so I found a state school place and moved her immediately. So this means that I owe half of her last terms fees and a terms fees in lieu of notice. We owe £4000. I just don't have that at the moment. I have no assets, I don't own anything of any value and am a carer of a disabled child. I'm a lone parent.

The school keeps asking me to pay the balance in full and I've explained to them that I can't and i have asked if I can pay in monthly instalments over 10 Months but they just ignore my requests.

What can I do about this? I don't have the money to pay otherwise I would pay it. I am worried that this could escalate somehow and I'm not sure what my rights are.

Can anyone advise me?

I asked if I could pay £500 a month btw.

I would get a loan out for £4000 that I could pay back and then give the school what I owe them

I'm not in a position to get a loan. As I said, I'm a full time carer.

Can you make an appointment to speak to the bursar in person if you haven't already) to explain? If so I would do that.

Or as previous poster said, get a loan for lowest amount you can and pay them off.

Sorry cross post

Not exactly related but I had a debt a while back and they kept asking me to pay the full amount, but I couldn't afford it so I kept sending in instalments. They kept asking me to pay the full balance every month, but every time the balance would be slightly less as I paid it off. Perhaps in the case of the school, they can't officially condone paying in instalments but obviously it's better for them if you pay it, so I'd just start sending the instalments and hope for the best. Sorry if that's awful advice but it worked in my case and the school might be similar.

Sorry cross post about the loan

Have you appealed to the governors? Ask for a copy of th complaints policy and if it has gone to the bursar and the head then try taking it to the governors. It would take them longer than 10 months to exhaust their legal avenues and take a charge on your house so it is in their interests to accept your payment plan.

If the school doesn't have a Consumer Credit License under the Consumer Credit Act they can't actually "officially" extend credit to you - it could be something related to that.

Did you give a deposit when DC first started there? How much? Have you asked if they can keep your deposit in lieu of notice?

No bank will be able to give a loan to a person on carers allowance. I think the school may be struggling themselves tbh.

Can you really afford to pay £500 per month, though, if you're relying on a carer's allowance? If you offer to pay something you can't afford to pay and they accept, you could find yourself in more trouble.

I think if you've asked and they've not replied (are you sure someone's at the school yet?) then I would post a cheque each month. It's very unlikely they won't cash it. I thought that if a person was paying off a loan regularly, the company would see it wasn't worth taking it to court.

Ok, I'm just going to keep on paying and hope for the best. It's not like I'm running off and refusing to communicate.

Well I don't want it to drag on. I get reasonable maintenance money from the dc's father which will help to pay it off. Also I do understand that they are struggling to get enough students in at year 7 currently.