Missed student finance deadline!

jon86 · 9 Jul 2013 at 12:43

platypus said:
The SLC seem to be a bunch of crooks.

My wife has had 1 payment left of £160 for about 3 years. And has regularly phoned up/written to them asking to pay this final payment. They finally got in touch on the 27th of June to say they were going to take payment from her next salary, so she phoned them the next day to pay off the final amount which she did, and they said they would issue a "stop notice" on the account.

Fast forward 5 days (yes less than a weeks notice), they took a percentage from her salary which was significantly larger than the £160,

I would agree that they're not the most helpful to deal with usually.

What your wife could have done (I would agree that it's not made super clear and isn't helpful now) was work out when she comes to within 1 year of paying off her student loan by automatic payment and informed Student Finance that she'll be making manual payments in her last year. This means that they could have issued a STOP notice then (4 years ago). They do allow this and it prevents issues where they take more than they should.

Five days is unfortunately too optimistic to expect a STOP notice to take effect. The process is, as I understand it: Student Loans Company issue a STOP notice to HMRC. HMRC informs your wife's company's payroll department and they stop taking student loan deductions through PAYE. This means that Student Finance or HMRC could have been slow, or your wife's company's payroll department got the notice too late for it to take effect in the next payroll run. If you inform HMRC and/or Student Loans Company that your wife overpaid, I think you can get a refund from HMRC or Student Loans Company.

Bromhead · 9 Jul 2013 at 12:48

Woden said:
I don't know why you have to apply every year. A degree is usually 3 years so why not have that right from the start? One application that does your whole degree then reapply for the final year if your on a masters.

Because a lot of students drop out, whatever year they're currently in.

Additionally circumstances change, should the household income increase this may affect the amount a student receives in funding.

Woden · 9 Jul 2013 at 12:48

-westy- said:
Because quite a lot of students drop out after 1 or 2 years. Some of those who do may continue to receive Student Loan payments that they're not entitled to, it would be a lot of hassle to get this money back.

Have the uni tell the SLC of any drop outs.

G-MAN2004 · 9 Jul 2013 at 12:53

jon86 · 9 Jul 2013 at 13:02

Woden said:
Have the uni tell the SLC of any drop outs.

Bromhead said:
...
Additionally circumstances change, should the household income increase this may affect the amount a student receives in funding.

Student loans are typically means-tested, so as Bromhead mentioned, the means testing needs to occur annually.

Westyfield2 · 9 Jul 2013 at 13:23

I only just realised this.

I'm on the bare minimum non means-tested loan with no grants (damn parents daring to work hard), and normally near the end of each year I get a letter from SLC asking "For next year will you be doing exactly the same as last year, tick here and it'll all be sorted"... didn't get that letter this year so had to go online and sort it out last weekend.

-westy- · 9 Jul 2013 at 13:25

Woden said:
Have the uni tell the SLC of any drop outs.

Quite often people may not "drop out" officially, just not turn up for the second/third year. By then payments would have already been made.

platypus · 9 Jul 2013 at 14:03

jon86 said:
Five days is unfortunately too optimistic to expect a STOP notice to take effect. The process is, as I understand it: Student Loans Company issue a STOP notice to HMRC. HMRC informs your wife's company's payroll department and they stop taking student loan deductions through PAYE. This means that Student Finance or HMRC could have been slow, or your wife's company's payroll department got the notice too late for it to take effect in the next payroll run. If you inform HMRC and/or Student Loans Company that your wife overpaid, I think you can get a refund from HMRC or Student Loans Company.

No I agree with the 5 days being too short notice, I said to her at the time that they'll take payment anyway. So why can they get away with less than 7 days notice?