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Christie_1What is the IDR Waiver?

The Short Version:  if you have an older FFEL loan, even a prior FFEL Consolidation Loan, make sure to consolidate this to a newer Direct Loan asap if you want all of the relief this program allows (contact us if you have any doubts or concerns about losing prior IDR time, interest rate increases, effects on PSLF etc.)  While the deadline to do so is May 1, the servicers are busy and it doesn’t pay to wait until the deadline!!

For many years, student loan servicers steered struggling borrowers into forbearance instead of guiding them toward income driven repayment.  Income driven payment generally caps payments at no more than 10 percent of income, and ultimately leads to loan forgiveness after 20 or 25 years of repayment.  Many of these loan servicers also failed to accurately track borrowers’ progress toward forgiveness.  Some of these companies had no system for tracking payments and identifying when borrowers would qualify for forgiveness.

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Christie_1The Brunner standard is a legal test used in certain circumstances to determine whether a borrower’s federal student loans can be discharged in bankruptcy. The test was established by the U.S. Supreme Court in the case of Brunner v. New York State Higher Education Services Corp. (1987).

The Brunner test has three prongs:

  1. Hardship: The borrower must prove that repaying the loans would impose an undue hardship on the borrower and their dependents.
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Christie_1Settling private student loans typically involves negotiating with the lender to reach an agreement on a new payment plan or a lump sum payment that is less than the full amount owed. Here are the steps to settle private student loans:

  1. Gather information: Get a detailed understanding of your current financial situation, including your total debt and income, as well as information about your private student loans, such as the lender’s contact information, the loan balance and interest rate.
  2. Consider stopping payment:  While it will hurt your credit, most of the best settlements occur once the loan is considered to be in default which occurs after 6-12 months of delinquency.
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Christie_1There are several ways to discharge federal student loans, including:

  1. Total and Permanent Disability (TPD) discharge: If you are completely and permanently disabled, you may be eligible for TPD discharge.
  2. Death discharge: If the borrower of a federal student loan dies, the loan may be discharged.
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Christie_1The Borrower Defense to Repayment (BDTR) program has undergone so many changes over the past decade it’s hard to keep track.

Notably, I wanted to set the record straight for those who may be receiving weird messages about their pending BDTR apps.

Only the 2019 Borrower Defense Rule imposed a statute of limitations on borrowers, and that rule only applied to loans that were issued after July 1, 2020– it does not apply to most of the BDTR applications. Unfortunately, when ED created its borrower defense application, it used a single application for all three standards without adequately differentiating what warnings would be shown to borrowers applying under different standards. As a result, borrowers get misleading warnings that don’t actually apply to them at all. There are no limitations periods for the 2016 or 1994 Rules (although there are some restrictions on when borrowers can receive a refund of amounts paid towards the loans implicated by the borrower defense application).

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Christie_1Did you realize that we have free videos on what to do about your student loan on our YouTube Channel “Student Loan Sidebar”?  Here’s a post from a few hours ago from one of our followers:
  • YouTube videos on student loan forgiveness have just been absolutely amazing. They break it down so it simple to understand. This whole thing has been so frustrating and these videos help to alleviate much of the anxiety I’ve had. Thank you! 
David Lafont
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arkovich_law-narrowConsumer complaints in Florida have a few things going for them that can make them easy to prove.

One of the things that benefits Florida consumers is our use of the “least sophisticated” debtor test.

What does this actually mean?

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First, and I must stress, EIDL loans are not forgivable.  They were intended to help small businesses recover from the economic impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic.

However, EIDL Advance funds are like grants and do not have to be repaid.

More information is available on the SBA website:  https://www.sba.gov/funding-programs/loans/covid-19-relief-options/eidl

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Christie_1I had a consult recently that is a good overview of what questions our clients have and how we are able to drill down to the essentials and help determine the best path forward to ending student loan debt.  This client reached out to us after viewing one of our Youtube Student Loan Sidebars where we go over the practical impact of new programs and what we see out there to help student loan borrowers.

Client:  300k SL debt, mostly Direct, 23k FFEL.  Client has a pending consolidation app.

Key concern:  How does IDR impact me?  Did PSLF Help Tool but still confused.

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