jaywales

hi all.
this is the skinny. i finished Uni 9 years ago moved to the usa in 2000 and have never paid anything. i did receive a few statements but never demands for payment.
Yesterday i got a letter from a debt collection company in CA telling me to pay them. My question is what is my legal stand point here. Can i be foreced to pay them, can i be taken to court for a debt that is outside the USA and can it go on my credit report even through in the UK student loans do not effect your credit rating. Although i owe this money i just dont like being bullied. any help is appreciated.
thanks

mellybrown

I also have never paid back my loan, nor recieved demands for payment, only statements. I didnt know what to do about it so never said anything when I lft the UK - whoops :s

Jerseygirl

You've got away with paying back your student loan for 8 years and now think you're being bullied? Assuming you're earning over the required amount do the right thing and pay it.

mellybrown

are you now earning more than you were in the UK?? Think you had to earn over 17000 to start paying it back - which I never did - and certainly still dont!!

jaywales

Like i said i know what the right thing is. I just want to know what legal grounds there are here.

Michael

There are a lot of issues as to who has jurisdiction as well as some issues concerning it being a student loan.

In California, the statute of limitations for debt collection is 4 years. However, federal law does allow a student loan to be discarded in bankruptsy so this could possibly indicate that a staudent loan does not have a statute of limitations. Also since the loan was made in the UK, California may not have any jurisdiction of the loan.

http://www.bills.com/blog/expiration...f-limitations/

It would be anyones guess as to whether this will affect your US credit report.

LivAtl

I think you came to the wrong forum for this, i suggest you get a lawyer and have them represent you, because technically the company in CA have purchased the debt and now you owe them, because there is actually a business in buying peoples bad debt.

LivAtl

It sounds like the UK company has sold it to a CA Company and now they own the debt.

The_English_Bride

You're supposed to notify SLC if you leave the country. You then receive a form to fill out once a year where you give them an update on your employment status and how much you earn in dollars. As long as it doesn't work out to be the equivalent of £15, 000 then you don't have to pay anything. If it is that amount or more, then you have to work out a payment plan with them from overseas. If you don't fill out the forms they start charging you anyway, which is probably what happened with you. When the payments were not received they would eventually have gone to collections.

Not sure how this works with your credit rating out here, but I would start paying the money back now if you are able to. You can read more about overseas repayment at http://www.slc.co.uk/thresholds/index.html.
You can also contact the SLC collections. Check here for phone number: http://www.slc.co.uk/contact%20us/cu...enquiries.html

jaywales

This im not sure about. The student loans (well mine was) a government loan. The letter states "your account has been listed with our company for collection. this is an attempt to collect a debt."

gee i dont know. I dont they have bought it. at 2 bucks to the pound it would be a very expensive gamble by any agency.

LivAtl

Yeah if I was you id do what the above poster to you said, try and settle it with the government dept that deals with it.

mellybrown

Thanks for that info - im gonna contact them and fill in that form!!

linakemp

If you can afford to start paying it back then I would. I have filled in the form recently and am waiting for the decided amount I need to pay back per month. Your student loan is still gaining interest and unfortunately it is an urban myth that if you leave the country for so many years the debt becomes wiped

Duncan Roberts

I tried for years to sort things out with the SLC, before and after I moved here. Calls, letters, forms. I tried to get them to send me the right stuff, after about 2 years they did. I tried to send them my earnings and find out how much I needed to pay and how to go about paying them, but they never responded even after I wrote them a letter explaining everything, what I had done and that I would consider it a breach of contract if they didn't respond. They wrote back with another form, which I duly sent back a couple of days later. 3 years on I'm still waiting for a reply.

"unfortunately it is an urban myth that if you leave the country for so many years the debt becomes wiped"

Actually, it's not. Depending on when you got the loan it will either be canceled when you reach 65 or after 25 years. That goes for all loans, not just for people who move out of the country. It was part of the contract you signed and is listed on their website.

Jerseygirl

Similar thing happened to me re. Child Benefit. I wrote to them many times saying we were no longer UK residents but the payments were paid into my UK building society account for about 5 years. Finally they wrote saying I owed them money and that they were willing to set up a payment scheme. Fortunately all the payments were still in the building society account.