Re: Paying back student loan
 

Student loans are non-recourse which is immoral in itself. I can't be the only one who sees loading up teenagers with debt that cannot be discharged by bankruptcy as evil surely.

Re: Paying back student loan
 

Hang on...what on earth are you earning?! (You don't actually have to answer that).

Are they really requesting 300 pounds GBP per month from you?

Re: Paying back student loan
 

I agree with you when I went to uni i did not want the syudent loans but I was on sickness benefits and they told me that it was there and I had to apply for it and they take the money off your bennefits to force you to have them
firefox

Re: Paying back student loan
 

Yes my loans are the new type which have to be paid back in a specific period of time i think its 76 months. they add all of them up and divid by the time limit
firefox

Re: Paying back student loan
 

The "new"-type student loans are paid like a tax. 9% of all earning above £15k in the UK, different thresholds abroad. They are cleared in 25 years if not paid off (35 years in Scotland). The old type are the mortgage style loans.

This does make me fail to understand the idea that was being bandied about a couple of months ago of a graduate tax -- that's what we have already... (in fact something better from the government's perspective seeing as it is a tax that can not be avoided by leaving the UK)

Re: Paying back student loan
 

No you're not. And while often misguided, misinformed and in a lot of cases, immortally supervised, I've seen many students' lives become debt ridden misery through owing tens of thousands of pounds/dollars.

Re: Paying back student loan
 

Saw this on the news today which suggests the levels of debt could be growing with the changes that are coming soon.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-your-money-12794863

Re: Paying back student loan
 

Actually, it is very easy to obtain a CCJ in such circumstances. Service is the only real issue and a skip tracer will have little difficulty finding someone in Canada. Once an address is ascertained, it is simply to persuade a Court to allow a creditor to serve a debtor out of the jurisdiction. The debtor will be given a longer period to respond to the Claim Form but summary judgment is likely to follow, unless, of course, the debtor wishes to return to England to fight it.

Re: Paying back student loan
 

A CCJ cannot be obtained against a non UK resident, although it has happened when a creditor has used the last known address. If they do this an application to have the CCJ set aside can be made. National Debtline England & Wales | Debt Advice | Factsheet 12 How To Set Aside A Judgment In The County Court

Re: Paying back student loan
 

Expert's Answer No, a CCJ can be obtained against a person living abroad.

The only thing that is difficult is enforcement and so what is the point of getting the CCJ anyway?

Also if the person were living abroad it would be fairly easy to set it aside as they would not have had notice of the hearing



This is from a law site in the UK

Re: Paying back student loan
 

Factsheet | How to set aside a judgment in the County Court
Quicklinks
1.When will the court agree to set aside a judgment?
2.Default judgment
3.I did not get the court papers
4.I missed a court hearing, what can I do?
5.How do I apply?
6.Do I have to pay a fee?
7.What happens next?
8.What happens to a judgment that is ‘set aside’?
9.Can credit repair companies help me?
10.Do I have to pay a fee to make an application in the county court?
11.Sample N244 form
When will the court agree to set aside a judgment?
The county court rules set out when you can apply to set aside a judgment. For example:

•an order was made against you in your absence, in certain circumstances;
•there may be an error in the judgment;
•you want to put in a defence and did not have the opportunity to do this;
•the proceedings did not follow the court rules

Re: Paying back student loan
 

It's annoying because I can't really afford to pay it easily every month. Thei repayment calculation is based soley on your gross income before taxes and any other deducions and takes no consideration of any other financial commitments such as mortgages or reductions on total household income.

Obviously that is just the way it goes when you borrow money but it is an ever changing situation. When you get a regular loan you set a monthly repayment and it doesn't change. They don't write to you every year increasing your repayment.

They also don't set up the loan when you are 18 right out of school going to University with stories about how it is interest free and will be easy to repay when you get your high paying graduate job etc. How many 18 year olds heading to university and moving out of home for the first time etc. read the small print about income thresholds and portions of income reserved to repayment and try and figure out that cost relative to income and cost of living?

Unless your parents have a whack of money saved up for you or you sacrafice your studies to work all yoru free time you pretty much have no choice but to take out the loans to pay for everything, fees, rent, food, books etc. So basically you just accept you will leave with a large debt.

I'm not saying that it is inherantly wrong or that tax payers should foot a large bill for everyone to go that far in education but that doesn't mean it is a great system and you have to enjoy paying the equivalent of an extra car payment or gas bill or whatever each month.

The other annoying thing is just the hassle of exchange rates and the value of the money owed changing all the time. That I suppose is my own fault for moving to a different country but there you go.

Most of those debt sites though seem to be designed to debt fraud as much as avoidance like tax evasion. They have found a technicality in the law regarding the type of debt/contract and advocate ignoring the debt and refusing all contact/payment for X years until you can claim it no longer valid and it is discharged.

I can see if you are flat broke and desperate but I think most people can pay it and just don't want to.

It does have its advantages in being income based in that if your income drops to zero you dont have to pay but that has the flip side as said before of having the repayments keep increasing once you do have a job.

My plan is to keep watching the exchange rate and see if it gets to a point where it is favourable to just pay the entire student loan off with Canadian credit and then pay it back locally so I can fix my payments, interest rates, lose the exchange rate and admin fees etc.

Incidentally the £300 type repayment is their default if you fail to provide adequate proof of income. They did that to me once when I sent my T4 and they sent back a letter saying it was not good enough (despite clearly stating your years income on a government form) and requesting pay stubs. The letter took so long to arrive they decided I wasn't responding and switched me to a default repayment of £275 or something insane. Like leasing a Jaguar. So I called them on the phone and told them I sent the info in the mail and they changed it back to my regular repayment until they got the form. Then they increased it but only by a smaller correct amount.

Re: Paying back student loan
 

Figured I'd chime in here, because it might be useful to some folks.

I've been in Canada since 2002, and graduated from Uni in 1998 - which meant I was in the old mortgage-style (i think that's what they called them) loan scheme where you could continually defer if you earned less than a certain amount each year.

I wasn't earning that before I left for Canada, and because at the time the exchange rate was so awful for us here, even though I was earning more on paper than I was in the UK, the exchange rate made it so I was still under the threshold.

Time has gone by and not only am I earning a lot more than I was, the exchange rate has gone from 2.5 to 1 to 1.5 to 1 - so I'm paying it back now.

SLC no longer handles those pre 98 loans, it's now some company called Thesis Servicing. It's pretty convenient as I can pay back with my credit card - so no wire charges or whatever. The only inconveniences are I can only set up monthly payments for 12 months in advance - as I have to reset it when the interest rate is reassessed each september. That and I have to make a call when my credit card expires (or I lose it and have to get a new one).

It's still pretty good in the sense that I'm paying in UK pounds, so am getting the best exchange rate each month. And you can make additional, ad-hoc payments via their website.

Still, I already feel like I've been paying this thing forever, and I just got off the phone with them and calculated it's still about another 22 months from completion - should I just keep paying the minimum. I think from now I am going to be more vigilant and pro-active about dumping spare money into it when I can - especially whilst the exchange rate is in my favour. $200 a month might not sound a lot, and my budget has gotten used to it, but it's the price of a cheap car lease - and i could use it right now.

Re: Paying back student loan
 

Colourful answers. Please tell me, what defence would a person who skipped the country without repaying a loan (a legal contract) that they had voluntarily entered into actually have? To be able to set a judgment aside, one must have a defence. Over to you;)

Re: Paying back student loan
 

You can only get an CCJ against someone living in the UK they must have a UK address and be living in the UK. Plus in my case my wife lost her job and we only have one income coming in each month no benefit’s here once EI runs out. I know with the low exchange rate I am over the income but all our money goes on keeping the house as it is now each month we have to pay on the credit card to get by

I know it’s a legal contract but when I went to uni I was on disabled benefit and because the student loan was on offer then deducted it of your benefit and that forced you to get the student loan