student loan issues and lawyer question recommendation

[crappie josh]

my wife has student loans for her schooling threw Sally may and she has been paying as much as we can afford on them but her payment that they set for her is more than our house payment and so the loan officer told her to pay what she can. well long story short they called her today and threatened to garnish our paycheck and income taxes if we don't pay the set amount of $$ that told my wife so my question is can they do that or do we need to talk to a lawyer? and if so can anyone recommend one?

 

[aviator41]

Short answer: yes, they can do that. Not even bankruptcy can protect you from the fedgov monster.

But, there is a student loan repayment program that is income based.

you can find info here: http://studentaid.ed.gov/repay-loans/understand/plans/income-based

only certain federal loans are covered, payments are income/family size based and spread out of something like 25 years. lots of other details can be had at the link above. after 25 years, the balance is forgiven - but you pay taxes on that forgiven amount as though it is income.

 

[Gabriel42]

http://studentaid.ed.gov/repay-loans/understand/plans

 

[4play]

I don't have much to add other than making sure they are putting bad marks on her credit report too. Good luck.

 

[gfercaks33]

Sallie Mae put a few bad marks on my history for not payin them back while I was still in school... I cringe every money when I have to pay them

 

[NightShade]

You can also apply for a forbearance, it can get the payments put on hold for a bit till you get some stuff sorted out. I would apply for it right away and then try and get some other programs going to reduce the payments. Generally the forbearance is for up to six months, interest is added during that time but when you have a rough spot to get through it can be very helpful.

Also if something happens to your wife and she applies and is approved for Social Security you can apply to have the loans forgiven. They also can only garnish her pay unless you co-signed the loans and though it is tough you can get your half of the tax refund back from them as your money is not a part of figuring the loan. If they do take the tax return you will have to take all your paperwork and file a bunch of stuff to show what would have been from her income and yours.

 

[Kyle78]

see if the OSLA.org will take over her loan. They are great people and are extremely helpful.

 

[ripnbst]

my wife has student loans for her schooling threw Sally may and she has been paying as much as we can afford on them but her payment that they set for her is more than our house payment and so the loan officer told her to pay what she can. well long story short they called her today and threatened to garnish our paycheck and income taxes if we don't pay the set amount of $$ that told my wife so my question is can they do that or do we need to talk to a lawyer? and if so can anyone recommend one?

IMO the loan officer gave you crap advice. "Oh yeah your payment is X but just pay X/2 and that is OK." If I didn't get this in writing I would not have listened to him. That should have been a big red flag.

I think you guys are probably not going to like the outcome of this. You could get a lawyer but I doubt he'd be any help and in the end you're only going to be out even more money because now you gotta pay him too. I'd see if you can get the loans transferred over to the income based plan as I think that is your best avenue for any kind of manageable recovery.

 

[Fyrtwuck]

My ex wife took out a student loan for $1100.00 before we were married back in 1995 She never repaid it and they seized her tax return. I got phone calls trying to track her down for years. The last call I got from them before I changed my phone number, the caller said that she had accrued penalties and interest and the loan was over $10,000.00.

A couple of process servers came knocking on the door asking for her and I just said, "no longer lives here" and shut the door in their face.

Her solution was to never file taxes again and live off of the income of her later boyfriends and husbands.

 

[KOPBET]

Make sure you don't have any large sums of cash in the bank for them to take.