Has anyone had any success negotiating with a student loan provider for a lump sum payment? My brother recently passed away and I'm the sole heir. No sympathies please as we weren't all that close. Anyway, there's plenty of money in the estate to take care of my wife's student loans but thought I would try to negotiate with the lender to see if we can get the payoff down a bit.
There are two lenders and the total is around $90K (it makes me sick to my stomach that it's that much). Interest rates are around 6.5%.
Student loans, unlike most other types of debt, are not subject to discharge in bankruptcy. Meaning that lenders have very little reason to agree to take less.
If you are current on payments and have no delinquency history, I don't think it's all that likely. Through some stupid decisions and a shoulder surgery, I fell behind on some of my loans years ago. I was able to negotiate away interest and collection penalties and pay only principal remaining with a big lump payment, but they weren't writing off any of the actual $$ that was lent. Good luck! [Reply]
usually to get a lump sum settlement granted you need to default on the loan for a few months so that the lender becomes desperate to recover any of the money.
Once you miss a few months if they are anything like credit card companies they will settle for less than what is owed [Reply]