Hello … I’m an American living and earning in London with a sizeable amount of student debt. Before I emigrated to the UK, I consolidated all of my private loans with my private lender, and consolidated my federal loans with the same private lender. Despite many months of searching for permanent work, I remain temping and I do not know what my income is likely to be from week to week. They’ve currently approved a deferment for three months, and I’m about halfway through it.

A few questions:

I am concerned that if I am still temping by the end of the deferment, they will look again at my ‘average’ income and again become sceptical as they did before. It is deceivingly high because the exchange rate is currently around £1 GBP = $1.85 USD, and it would be very difficult to quantify the very high cost of living in London. (Besides, temping is temping – no permanent work yet.)

I am also wondering if I am obligated to put any of my spouse’s income on deferment forms (or will refusing to do so really annoy my lender and make them unlikely to be helpful?)

I have no desire to default and/or be sued, and I would like to avoid it and keep a half-decent credit rating for if or when I move back to the USA. I have no assets or property for them to raid (especially internationally – it would cost more to transport any of my property than it’s actually worth). I certainly wouldn’t be able to return to the USA if they attempted to take me to court (uh, the problem is that I have no money – how would I afford to travel??). How many of those types of threats (i.e., lawyers, repo goons) are actually viable in this case? More importantly, how can I politely negotiate with them to let me defer again if necessary (i.e., convincing them that demanding the entire sum or suing me is not in their best interest) without it appearing to sound like ‘ha ha, I’ve skipped the country and you can’t touch me?’

Finally: I have been wondering if it is legal to sell the debt internationally to a UK debt collector – private or federal loans?

Many thanks in advance … feel free to break up my questions/responses into separate posts if necessary!!

What a great question. Ok, as a frequent traveler, and often living for months or a year outside the country, here is my 2 cents. Since you have consolidated, you cannot again.... unless... you have another loan with somebody else. So, maybe go back to school. Pick a regionally accredited university that works with fed aid, like Mountain State as it is completely online, and pick a program. You get a deferment while you are inschool anyway. then, you get a loan through them. then you either remain a student, if you like it (I LOVE being a student) or you consolidate with Direct, who offers an income sensitive plan. i am not sure if that will help hugely as I think they look at spouses income for that too...so if spouse makes an income, you will end up paying something... but anyway, it will probably be less. Just keep in mind that there are loads of programs out there that you can do from anywhere, and many will disburse fed aid, and each time you consolidate the 3 year deferement and 3 year forebearance clock starts again. At least, it has with me.

I would love to know how this works out for you. What you decide and what happens. Good Luck, Red Rock

Hiya - thanks for the reply. I am not as concerned about the federal loans as I am about the private one, which is much, much larger. I doubt if the lender would let me defer if I got another federal loan. It's an interesting idea in theory, but I'm not really interested in getting into more debt to stall paying the current debt!

If you have any other ideas, I'd appreciate it.

You cannot consolidate that private loan in with the other ones?

My course cost less than $1000 for the semester. That is WAY less than what my payments would be. Plus, you might qualify for a grant there... so you could take a course and it not cost you anything, plus having consolidated all those loans, you could get a income sensitive repayment... plus still have the deferment and forebearance available. It does not have to cost you much or anything to be a student again... just a thought.

But good luck,
RedRock

Hiya - no, I'm afraid I can't consolidate the federal loans with the private ones. Thanks for the suggestion, though.

I suppose that leaves me again with the 'how do I politely negotiate' question....

Somewhat unrelated: can anyone tell me if you often get 'Americans in other countries' asking questions? The owners asked me why I wanted to be registered because of the international element. Which is totally understandable.

(I guess I ask because I'm amazed at how ignorant my lender can be when it comes to concepts such as transferring currency, their moronic inability to let me pay them by debit card, and again, the lack of understanding regarding exchange rates. You can tell it's totally outside their bureaucracy's sphere of experience and/or understanding... meaning: they don't ever deal with someone actually leaving the USA.)

Once you don't have a home address in the good 'ol US of A, you are locked out of loads of things. You can't pull your credit report, can't open a checking account, can't get money orders... The list goes on and on. Lots of websites won't even let you register, as "state", "zip" etc. are mandatory fields!

Forcing an overseas borrower to wire money every month, with the significant additional charges is not acceptable.

The good thing is that once you are overseas, you will never again use your SS #. Write it down, lest you forget it!

My opinion is that if the system can't be flexible enough to work under your circumstances and good faith efforts to comply, perhaps you should give it the finger and move on. As soon as you stop thinking about it, you'll feel better. Lynn always chimes in with something about a lawsuit in Ireland over defaulted loans, but I can't find anything about that on this site or elsewhere, so that is unproven hearsay at this point.

Enjoy Blighty!

I am not nor am I in the habit of pulling information out of my ass that is not factual. So since you cant google search, I will provide you with the link. It is on another student loan forum.

http://www.debt-consolidation-credit-repai...ghlight=ireland

Thanks for the link, but all of that advice on there was yours! As for the lawsuit, I believe the lawsuit that is occurring (from my reading) was filed by a Canadian lender. Canadians are Commonwealth (think, the Queen of E) and have citizens going back and forth between Canada and Ireland. The poster you presented only mentioned TERI as an aside, so I don't interpret TERI to be the plaintiff.

Either way, I guess you might get sued in the UK but you probably won't. If you stay in the US, would your chances be higher? Also, can they garnish in the UK? Is there AWG? Do your loan documents have your passport number on them?

I imagine at the end of the day you can't get blood from a turnip and lenders know this. Collectors that call you night and day might not think this way, but the decision-makers do.

Edited to Add: - Please read what caused this debtor's problems to arise - s/he contacted the lender in good faith and tried to work things out. Either let them lie completely dormant, or pay them as agreed.

Whoa, I think I should make some things clear. The only time anyone ever threatened litigation or similar, was from the lips of one who was obviously a trainee ignoramus attempting to 'get results,' and I demanded to speak to her superior. Her superior, a male, is the only one I have dealt with since. Since then he has/they have been fairly cooperative, except for one thing: misunderstanding of the currency conversions, artificially 'inflating' my income. I am concerned for the future after my current deferment, if I am still temping.

I do not intend to run from my obligations. I just know that if they should threaten litigation or repo goons or any suchlike, it would not at all be in their best interest to actually go through with any of that - it will cost much more to do such things, compared to anything I have of worth (nothing). So again, I'm left with, can I politely explain all of that without pulling out the 'well, I'm in the UK and you can't do much.' (For all I know, they still could.)

As I said, what I do not want, is for them to assume that I *have* skipped the country and thereby intend to run from my commitments. It's not much of a different situation than if I were temping with no assets in the USA, except for one detail: currency conversion, making my 'income' (never assured as a temp), and 'expenses' look like a hell of a lot more than it actually is. One can't easily explain or quantify the cost of living in one of the most expensive cities in the world, and the exchange rate fluctuations; and how making the payments is a strain.

Thanks though, for all the suggestions and notes about the suit in Ireland.

I read it, not as an aside but as a "since I'm Canadian but attended an American school and got American loans would that make a difference?" thing

I didn't know Canadian lenders financed US education...

And what does the fact that Lynn gave advice there have to do with anything? You said you never heard of the case so it must be a blatant falsehood (hearsay whatever you want to call it)...She gave ya the "proof" and now you say "oh it doesn't count because you gave advice"??

TERI is a US lender however it is not uncommon for them to finance a Canadian borrower going to school in the US. Particularly grad studies.

The Canada Student loan program, the fed program to the north, will finance a Canadian going to a US school. Before I immigrated to the US, I went to school here and got funding thru them!

It appears that Legaleagle has very little working knowledge of how student loans function.

Wow, that's cool! I didn't realize they would do that.