I'm looking for some advise from anyone who has been in a similar situation. Had a student loan and it was being paid via PAYE in the UK. When I was leaving I tried to contact SLC as I had not received any paperwork in ages and I could not confirm my ID number. Was on the phone for hours and hours and I just got stonewalled.

Left in February and now I think I'm leaving it too late to contact them, by my calculations I've accrewed £2600 in arrears but back home I have not received any letters.

I'd like to sort this out now and I am concerned about the fees in arrears. Has anyone contacted SLC after a number of months even if they did not contact you and did they just set up a payment plan or did they also try and demand full payment of the fees in arrears?

For the record, I still don't have my ID I'm hoping my name, national insurance number and date of birth will suffice.

Before I left the UK I did an overseas assessment form and said I was travelling (I didn't know if and when I would get a steady job). In July they wrote to me again asking what I was doing and that I was at risk of them adding £250 each month. I sent them another overseas assessment form, a copy of my job contract and calculations to show I'm under the threshold (because luckily I am . They confirmed this and I don't have to pay anything until next year (maybe)

You can set up a payment plan and if I get PR I will do this but as long as you tell what you are doing and send proof of this it should be fine

I have found them to be fairly reasonable people.. but you do have to keep them updated with what you are doing as beckiwoo said. Right now I earn under the threshold so I was asked to send them some paycheques to prove that, then they reassess in a year or so. If you have a bunch of arrears then you might have to prove what you were earning during the period, if you were under than I would guess it is going to be OK. But I would speak to them sooner rather than later if possible.

Called them a few times, generally when they try to charge me fees for not notifying them in time each year. Usually helps when I get through to someone Scottish as they have no issues with a N.Irish accent.

Kinda took me longer than it should have to realise, being from N.Ireland, you end up with contact details at "SLC" and contact details at "Student Finance NI". In their infinite wisdom everything is pretty much identical (and shared across both) except the pages where you put in your address.

Should be getting something soon actually telling me to prove to them I owe them nothing again this year.

I didn't pay for the first two years I just sent the form and bank account statements they never asked if I had a job or not. Pretty easy