I have a private loans through Sallie Mae that I had originally co-signed with my mother until she passed a couple months ago. While I only have 14,000 left total, I got very behind and missed payments after her passing, had to regain access to the account, etc. What happens if I don’t pay the delinquent cost (which is $1100 due within a month)? They began to call my siblings who live in separate states from me. At that point I called, but they asked questions about my occupation, part time vs full time, school degrees, etc. and I wanted to know if that would anyway change my interest rate or if something could change contract wise with my co-signer being deceased? I plan to call back tomorrow but not sure what I should ask or what I should be looking at, I have no idea how to navigate this correctly outside of googling things
Private loan delinquency
byu/Puzzleheaded_Tell684 inStudentLoans
Posted by Puzzleheaded_Tell684
3 Comments
Worst case they put in a wage garnishment so it gets taken from your checks at work. And they take your income tax returns if you get them.
The best thing you can do is call them, explain the situation that your mother passed away and you got behind. There’s likely something they can do to help by putting you on hold for a couple months, or something lime that. Either way, the worst thing you could do is just not contact them and let them sue you for the debt.
To clarify, were you the student borrower and your mother the cosigner?
Sallie Mae generally removes the deceased cosigner upon receiving a death certificate, allowing the student borrower to remain the sole borrower. But you should verify on original promissory note to see if there is an acceleration clause that makes the full balance due.
If the default is due to financial hardship (and not just an automatic clause), you should ask for forbearance or a loan modification to temporarily lower payments.
Other option is to look into refinancing the loan with a different lender in your own name, which would pay off the original Sallie Mae balance. Check out Navy Federal Credit Union for refinancing private student loan.
Sorry for your loss. Good luck.