Timeline of default to being sued
Posted by pinkdiamonds00@reddit | studentloandefaulters | View on Reddit | 5 comments
I’m planning to refinance soon my loans with Sallie Mae ( to get rid of my dad as the co-signer) and then default.
Context: I live and work in France.
My statute of limitations is 4 years and I’m going to assume they will sue because the amount will be about 125,000 dollars.
For those of you that defaulted and were sued, how long did it take for your company to sue you? I would love as much time as possible to save up for a settlement as well as lawyer and would definitely need at least 2 years to do so but know that’s not in my control.
Also how did you go about finding a lawyer? What kind of lawyer would you hire for this kind of case?
glrlpanic@reddit
Hi!! Took about 2 and a half years from default to being served for me. Got a lawyer to settle, and ended up being able to settle nearly 200k for ~50k? ish? so 278/mo for about 15 or so years . would have been more, but my parents were able to provide a partial lump sum settlement by borrowing against their mortgage. we also did not fight nearly as hard as we could’ve, so maybe we could’ve gotten a better deal… but honestly the psychological impact of defaulting is so much worse than anything that actually happens. We just wanted it to be over. Our lawyer basically just acted as a middleman for us… honestly I think we could’ve gotten it done without him, but he gave us solid advice. Just google student loan lawyers in your state! That’s what we did.
DisembarkEmbargo@reddit
I defaulted for about a year or 2 before settling. I did not get sued but of course got threatened with it. I tried to find a lawyer but no one wanted to take the case. I kind of just wanted them as a negotiator but whatever. I got my family involved to help me with negotiating because I got nervous. You don't need a lawyer to settle before they set a court date but you would likely want one if you want to settle after they set a court date.
pinkdiamonds00@reddit (OP)
Thank you for sharing. And were you able to negotiate that amount? Or did they insist on 64k? Like how much of the negotiating power did you have?
DisembarkEmbargo@reddit
Yes, we were able to negotiate that amount. I wanted an amount closer to 50k but I would have had to wait longer to negotiate that amount. I think as time goes on the debt collectors are more willing to lower the lump sum amount but then they are also more likely to she. They always tried to get a higher number of course.
I technically had all the negotiating power.
DisembarkEmbargo@reddit
I'm just here to correct myself in my first comment so I essentially had two lawyers that I like talked to that seems sort of interested in this case. One lawyer was a junior lawyer that it first seemed interested in helping me negotiate and then later on they decided they didn't want to help. So I thought oh okay. And then another lawyer was in like in nearby larger town and she would have been in a very expensive lawyer to retain. But I essentially neither of them were really interested in helping me negotiate this debt. Just only helping me if I like got sued