I just made payment #4 of my 9-month rehab, thanks to some help from Mom. We had an emergency and I ended up having to put my SL money (and then some!) towards that. My payments are due on the 15th of each month and the terms state they can be made "...no later than 20 days after the due date" to remain on the rehab program.

My next payday is June 5th, so I probably could have sent a check to arrive shortly before then, knowing my bank takes several days to process payments, but my mom mailed a check for me, and I in turn sent her a check dated for June 5th.

I was curious what would happen if I had not been able to work this out - if my payment arrived, but was a day or two past that 20-day grace period, would all bets be off or would the rehab just start again with that being considered payment #1?

Luckily my new boss doesn't care if I come in on the weekends to make up time missed, so I have been able to bank my paid time off. Once I have 40 hours saved up I am going to sell it and bank the money in case of any future 'emergencies'.

If you fail to make an on-time payment on the rehab, you would have to sign a new agreement and start over.

Regardless of what the rehab agreement says, I would strongly recommend doing everything possible to ensure the payments reach them no more then 15 days before or after the due date.

I have seen a few cases where some guarantor (or a collection agency they hired) just plain screwed up, and as a result we repurchased a loan that was not properly rehabbed. We make them buy the loan back, the borrower is pissed, both my company and the guarantor lose money, and everyone involved wasted a lot of time. If they take forever in paying the "repurchase recall claim" to us, we'll also file an appeals claim for interest, which if they pay they'll add to the amount the borrower has to pay. It's a really ugly mess.

Thanks for the info - I admit that I haven't been able to have it there BY the 15th yet, but I've never mailed it later than the 18th of the month. July is a 3-payday month for us, so I'm going to get it on track then.

I also call the 800 number supplied by the DOE to verify that my payment was received. The latest a payment has been processed was the 26th, so I'm still doing okay.