Hi jasperpad, The terms of the pre-1998 ('mortgage-style') loan agreement that concern cancellation without repayment are given in paragraph 12 of the Schedule 2 of the Education (Student Loans) Regulations 1998 (see the link below.) (These terms take precedence of any other printed agreement you'v been given.) For most people, the loans are cancelled after 25 years, but this is not true in all cases. SC Statutory Instrument 1997 No. 211

maybelline is right. Put in a request under the Data Proctection Act 1998 for any records showing charges made to you. (You might want to request anything else you want, such as your account notes--there's no extra charge.) There should be a sample letter somewhere on this site. Remember that Smith Lawson & Company is a trading name of Student Loans Company. It is a collections team that works in SLC's Collections Department. Address your request to SLC and state that the request applies to any part of the organisation, including SmLC. Also note that registered mail is specially examined at SLC for DP requests, etc. If you want to know more about the situation regarding credit charges in connection with Student Loans Copmany, see my posting: http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/general/98225-student-loans-company-default.html SC

In 1998, the government sold a tranch of loans to Finance for Higher Education Ltd, a holding company set up purely for the sake of investing in public student loan debt. It seems that your loan was included. Tricity Lombard Finance were appointed to "oversee the administration of the portfolio" for FFHE. They're not debt collectors and they don't own your debt. (But if you get any problems with your loan account, I don't see why you couldn't approach them.) Just to confuse things, FFHE was established (and may well be owned) by NatWest. LTF does not appear to be a company in its own right (it may be a trading name), but is owned by The Royal Bank of Scotland Group. SLC should have told you about the sale in 1998, although I don't know if they're required to. If asked, SLC may say (incorrectly) that the loan was sold to LTF, as this is who they deal with. Hope this helps. If you want any more info, let me know. SC HOWELLS ANNOUNCES RESULT OF STUDENT LOAN DEBT SALE

Anyone interested in knowing whether default charges in connection with 'mortgage-style' -- pre-1998 -- student loans are reclaimable and why, visit the thread below. http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/general/98225-student-loans-company-default.html

Anyone interested in knowing whether default charges in connection with 'mortgage-style' -- pre-1998 -- student loans are reclaimable and why, please visit the thread below. http://www.consumeractiongroup.co.uk/forum/general/98225-student-loans-company-default.html

Posts regularly appear on this forum enquiring as to whether charges made by Student Loans Company in connection with mortgage-style repayment loans are reclaimable in the same way bank charges are. In short, the answer is yes. In fact, the question is somewhat ironic. This is because the legal premise on which the recovery of bank charges is based is founded on the position of the Office of Fair Trading (stated in April 2006, link below) which concerns credit lenders and not banks. Potential claimants shouldn’t be dissuaded either by the recent judgement by Judge Cook (link below) that bank charges do have a legal basis or by the OFT’s recent revelation that the question of bank charges is more complex than it first envisaged. It appears that Judge Cook dismissed the recent claim because going into the red on a bank account does not constitute a breach of agreement and, as such, the argument that bank's charges are in excess of costs recoverable from a breach of agreement does not apply. The judge also concluded that the charges that were applied to the claimant’s account constitute a charge for service and that the borrower agreed to those charges when he took out his agreement. The Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Act 1999 will not protect the customer because it does not cover the 'adequacy' of service charges. The argument in the case of credit lenders is different however. In general, credit agreements contain express terms against the borrower spending over his limit or failing to make repayments. Thus, the normal argument applies: the charges are in excess of those required to cover costs. Since these charges are not service charges, the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contracts Act 1999 also appears to apply. Essentially, credit lenders are in the business of giving credit, whereas, banks are more generally in the business of ‘looking after your money,' which involves a more flexible approach to credits and debits than just lending credit. The Student Loans Company ‘mortgage-style’ loan agreement (from March 1998 onward--more on this shortly) contains terms that refer to the company’s ‘charges guide’ in the context of costs arising from a borrower’s breach of agreement. As far as I can tell, because failure to make repayments is a breach of agreement, the normal rules for recovering default charges apply (more so than they do to banks.) It may also be of interest to the claimant to note that for any loan taken out before 1998 (which is almost all mortgage-style loans), as far as I know, the most recent terms of the agreement that apply should be those that came into effect on 1 September 1997. (Dig the notice out if you kept it.) These terms do not refer to a charges guide or make any other provision for standard charges. The upshot is that the company has no contractual basis for applying standard charges, anyway -- only to retrieve actual costs. Charges have been successfully reclaimed from Student Loans Company, as can be seen from postings on this site. Feel free to post any comments, queries or corrections. SC OFT's statement of position (April 2006): http://www.oft.gov.uk/shared_oft/reports/financial_products/oft842.pdf Recent judgement: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/15_05_07_bank_charge.pdf

Thanks for taking the trouble to reply, Chesham. However, the "prescribed period" is not prescribed in the Act itself (see Section 189 of the Act.) For anyone following this thread, as far as I can tell, the prescribed period is twelve days. (That is, the lender must provide the requested information within twelve days of receipt of the request.) The period is prescribed in the Consumer Credit (Prescribed Periods for Giving Information) Regulations 1983 (SI 1983/1569, Reg. 2, schedule.) (Btw, Slider72, I'm not too fussed about you hi-jacking this thread. It took me a while to find the templates, too.)

Could somebody tell me what the "prescribed period" is under Section 77 of the Consumer Credit Act 1974 and, more importantly, where I can find it (i.e. which article of legislation prescribes it?) ("The creditor under a regulated agreement for fixed-sum credit, within the prescribed period after receiving a request in writing to that effect from the debtor, etc.") Advice appreciated.

Hi pyewackettt, I shall try to respond, this time hopefully without being unduly set-upon. I'll email you separately if with further advice if possible. You touch on a number of subjects, but the key point is that the situation with the debt collection charge (presumably the £20 per letter charge) falls into the same bracket as bank charges and can be dealt with in exactly the same way. Although now that the OFT has suggested that £12 is fair (although arguable) I'm not sure if this changes matters (i.e. could you only claim back £8 per charge?) It doesn't matter if you've paid the charges already, they will be refunded. HOWEVER, a catch-all approach may simply be to approach this from the angle of failure to comply with the agreement if, as you suggest, your son correctly sent a deferment application form. I'm not sure what the position is regarding applications lost in the post, or what a court would say. However, deferment forms DO go astray (or at least sit in 'limbo') at SLC. Has your son asked if the deferment form was received? The first step is SLC's complaint's procedure. Don't expect much, but if it is not resolved by SLC it will go for independent assessment. Or see a solicitor, of course. Am interested to hear that SLC have accepted your intention to ignore standard form letters. Was this anything to do with the Data Protection Act? That said, I have experience of page-fulls of manually written garbled nonesense that give no indication what the letter is about (other than demanding payment, etc.) and what it is in reply to. Am not sure about the cutting and pasting of letters onto the system at SLC, although they do (as far as I'm aware) keep a copy of the full letter. I don't mind faceless organisations to be honest--as long as they get things right. The reason I was drawn to this thread is Smith Lawson & Company (SmLC), a trading name of Student Loans Company, though not a trading arm in the usual sense (SLC only begins 'trading' with the customer as 'SmLC' once his account falls into arrears.) There are issues of fairness here. For instance, you may notice that letters from 'SmLC' are to an extent contrived to look like form letters sent from a third party "recovery services" agency. SLC's charges guide say that the company will charge the defaulter third party fees as cost. This may cause undue concern in the borrwer who has not caught on to the trick. SLC created SmLC in order to cut the cost of using (real) external agencies. The company has also found that use of the SmLC trading name has improved returns on outstanding debts. A thread on this site suggests that a separate thread for student loans would be a good idea. I think a whole site could be devoted to SLC. Regards, SC

Thank you. (1) There was no error in my posting. (Apologies for correcting you on that.) (2) I *do* know what I am talking about. Although my advice was offered indpendently of the CAG's position, it does not mean it is unfounded or that I am not qualified to advise. The contents of my posting were perfectly fine and there is no reason why my advice would cause an incorrect claim. I didn't notice you replying back in March when the query was first posted. I think some helpful advice is better than none at all, don't you? You might ask yourself why it is don't I know much about CAG... It strikes me, mahala, that if you'd put as much effort into keeping your finances in order over the last six years as you've put into your claims, you might not be in this position in the first place. Give it a rest and save your criticisms for your latest Particulars of Claim.

Thanks. No need to shout. Did I not mention that I'm not well up on this bank charges thing? Did I not mention that I think the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations Act is the basis of the Office of Fair Trading's position? I shall keep my mouth shut next time should I?

Hi, There are a couple of things to note: (1) Smith Lawson & Co is NOT a debt recovery company. It is Student Loans Company under a trading name (SLC & SLC, see?) (2) Certainly in the mortgage-style loan agreement, the borrower agrees to pay charges as per the charges guide. I'm not well up on this bank charges thing, so I don't know how this affects your position. The explicit term in the agreement presumably makes it a little more difficult, but it is still possible to argue that the charges (at, for example, £20 for a form letter) are unrepresentative of actual cost and thus that the term is unfair (under the Unfair Terms in Consumer Contract Regulations Act.) I think this is the basis of the Office of Fair Trading's position. Check the other advice available. Regards, SC