If you need urgent support, call 999 or go to your nearest A&E. To contact our Crisis Messenger (open 24/7) text THEMIX to 85258.
Options
Student Loans while living abroad
Former Member
Posts: 1,876,323 The Mix Honorary Guru
Hi Guys
Ive been living in Germany since I graduated from university in 2003 and havent paid a penny back to the SLC for my student loans.
Has anyone got any experiences or advice with this?
Should I continue to dodge my payments as the SLC cant/havent found me yet?
Will they ever find me and demand the money from me?
What would happen if they do?
Is there any truth in the myths that the loan could be deleted after X number of years?
Ive been living in Germany since I graduated from university in 2003 and havent paid a penny back to the SLC for my student loans.
Has anyone got any experiences or advice with this?
Should I continue to dodge my payments as the SLC cant/havent found me yet?
Will they ever find me and demand the money from me?
What would happen if they do?
Is there any truth in the myths that the loan could be deleted after X number of years?
Post edited by JustV on
0
Comments
You should be paying it back even though you live abroad if you meet the usual requirements e.g. are earning over a certain amount (if you are earning euros or another currency then apply the current exchange rate as applicable). The amount that you need to be earning to be obliged to start payments depends on the terms and conditions of the student loan as stated when you took the loan out - for my sister (who started university in 1999) the limit was £15,000 but for me (I started in 2003) it had come down to £10,000 pa.
You are likely to be hit with a large demand when you come back to the UK if you don't get in touch with them sooner rather than later. Also you are acquiring interest on your loan the whole time.
I thought loan rate was based on inflation and you only pay back what you borrowed?
thats a tad worrying. i started uni in 2004 and they told me then it was paid bk in small amounts if i earnt 15k or more??
That's what I got told as well. (I haven't actually started uni yet) and it does say that on some of the uni websites.
Was in England for 3 months, worked but did not make above 15,000 and did not make any loan repayments.
Then went back to Germany for 6 months.
Then was back in England for 3 months, worked but did not make above 15,000 and did not make any loan repayments.
Went back to Germany and have been here earning above 15,000 for the last 1 year and 9 months.
Have recieved 2/3 letter froms SLC to my parents house asking about me since 2003, which I havent replied too. But that has been all. Nothing else.
I have been back to UK on many occasions for holidays etc and no the SLC were not waiting for me at the airport.
So are you guys saying that if/when I do come back to the UK to work, the SLC will either:
Give me a large bill for the loan while I was abroad. If I tell them I was earning over 15,000 during this time.
If I tell them I wasnt earning over 15,000 during this time then I will start to pay back my loan as normal when I start working in the UK and earning over 15,000.
If I tell them I wasnt earning over 15,000 during this time then I will start to pay back my loan but it will be at a higher rate than normalwhen I start working in the UK and earning over 15,000.
They did not know what I was doing for those 9 months, even though I wasnt working.
I just worked and paid taxes as normal. But my pay never reached over 15,000 for me to pay anything back.
Are you saying the first time that my pay goes over 15,000 in the UK then I will flag up on their systems and they will ask, "what has he been doing since he graduated"?
Then the problems will start?
So how can I pay it back while living abroad if they dont know where I live?
The only way for them to make me pay it back is:
Demand my parents to pay the money.
If I return to England to work. Giving me a higher rate cos I have been away.
I return to England to work and they give me a bill for the time ive been away.
But it has been 3 years since ive graduated and still nothing.
If I move back to england, I will pay it back if I earn over 15,000.
Meanwhile the above inflation interest will continue to grow on the loan.
and then they lived happily ever after.
Just that, in not telling the SLC that I have moved abroad I could get into "trouble", at an unknown time in an unknown way.
Ok no problems, thanks anyway
Hi, I contacted the Student loan company via telephone and said I was living abroad (but not for how long) and they updated my address details. They then instructed me to fill in the "Overseas Income Asdessment" Form which I did giving my current Gross Salary and also last 3 pay slips and also detailing that the date I started work was 2005.
I got my monthly payment as 234 pound, which sounds very close to what some people have the called "flat overseas rate of £246 per month".
Im wondering if they just gave me the flat rate and have not yet taken into account my pay slips I faxed them, or due to the fact we are in Germany and our Gross salaries are quite large due to having to pay such a large amount of tax, that our monthly payment is so high?
But the good news is, that I didnt get any penalties (unless the 234 a month is a high monthly payback as punishment).
Im not sure what the Student loan company would do if they contact/caught you before contacting them yourself, Ive read about a variety of punishments they can do, but in my case there has been none.
But the 9% of my Gross pay is still over 200 quid. I guess that is correct, but then they are not taking into acount the higher gross pay due to higher taxes here in Germany compared to England.
They said, that I have to get letter of salary from Employer, to show that I get taxed 50ish% here in Germany. Dont know why my payslips which detail all the tax individually is not enough? Then with this letter they can re-evaluate my monthly contribution again.
They probably want proff from your employer to show your not lying to them about the amount your being paid.
To re-open this thread. I am also in Germany paying my student loan off through an overseas assessment. As with the OP I also moan about having to pay so much of of my net wages to the SLC even though compared to someone working in the UK my net disposable income left afterwards is less than someone living and paying the loan in the UK because taxes are much higher here. Apart from that, my question is:
Does anybody have experince of paying the student loan from abroad, i.e paying the loan from an overseas account or do you still have a UK account. The SLC specifies that you need to have a UK account, but I don't really know why I should keep a UK account open and transfer to it every month when the interest is charged annually (the same interest each month regardless of the fact that a payment was made). I want to propose to the SLC that I make a yearly payment based on the amount they quote me, but would like to know in advance whether anyone else has done this. I could just go ahead and do this anyway, but then my account would be in arrears by 11 months, and this could cause problems.
Thanks!
Lissy
They never wrote back to me letting me do this, I think they might have given up for now, in fact after the multiple letters I wrote to them I never heard anything more about what payments I owe, where to pay etc, so I haven't made any payments, as they haven't replied to my latest correspondence. There is no way I can pay monthly, as to send 90 pounds a month via bank transfer from canada would cost about 20-40 pounds extra a month just in transaction fees. I was prepared to pay exactly what I owe in one payment at the end of the year but they never wrote back to let me do that. I have kept the record of correspondence so if I can dispute if they ever try to make a court judgement against me, but I don't see how they could.
I don't know what would happen if you return to the UK. I think at best that your loan account balance would just go up by the interest each year as usual (which, although linked to inflation, is linked to a high way of calculating inflation and is about 4% per year), and if you ever earn over 15000 per year in the uk it would get taken out of your pay as usual. It would probably take up to a year or so before they start taking it automatically, before the tax records / national insurance numbers get sent to them and they contact your employer to start collecting. Don't know if anyone has any experience of this?
Read it in a moneysavingexpert.com email i got!