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%.
Originally Posted by TribalElder:
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
Eh, that's way too simplified. They're going to have a team looking over her financials and assets if they feel they can just garnish and seize to recover the difference, they will and not shit you can do about it.
If your wife has no assets or money, ya they could be much more motivated. On the flipside, if there's a co-signer (likely) well uh that could get super ugly. [Reply]
Originally Posted by TribalElder:
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
Before paying that I would consider if you have worse debt. At least the interest on that student debt is tax deductible. Are your cars debts paid off?
That interest rate isn't very good for student loans, so maybe paying it off is better long term to free up that monthly money. I doubt you'll get much done on a discount. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Iowanian:
Before paying that I would consider if you have worse debt. At least the interest on that student debt is tax deductible. Are your cars debts paid off?
That interest rate isn't very good for student loans, so maybe paying it off is better long term to free up that monthly money. I doubt you'll get much done on a discount.
It's deductible up to a certain point. I think IIRC, the max is 10k per year. [Reply]
I'm by no means an expert (welcome to ChiefsPlanet), but from what I understand, doing this will do a lot of damage to her credit score. It's supposedly easier to do with private loans than a federal loan, so it may depend on who you're working with.
It's also my understanding that if any of your debt is actually forgiven, it becomes taxable income that will ding you next year on your return. But I'd be happy for someone with more tax knowledge than me to correct me on that. Either way I'd make sure to ask someone the tax implications if you actually pulled it off. [Reply]
Originally Posted by Iowanian:
Before paying that I would consider if you have worse debt. At least the interest on that student debt is tax deductible. Are your cars debts paid off?
That interest rate isn't very good for student loans, so maybe paying it off is better long term to free up that monthly money. I doubt you'll get much done on a discount.
You're right on the whole. But not all student loan interest is deductible. There is a cap and phaseouts in there, and I'd have to look them up.
The theory is sound though, if you have any debt that is at a higher interest rate, pay that off first. Or if you can achieve a higher return in some other financial instrument - 401K or whatever, it would be better to just keep paying and funnel the money into an instrument.
Tax sheltered instruments will have yearly caps, so you'll have to hang onto some of that money or do some monkeying around. Your 401K will have the highest cap so if you and the wife go max out the 401K and use the money to live on, that would be better from a net value perspective. If you inherited an actual retirment fund as the beneficiary, that's even better. Just roll that shit into what you've got or a ROTH if you think you can beat it and forget about it. [Reply]
Originally Posted by O.city:
It's deductible up to a certain point. I think IIRC, the max is 10k per year.
That didn't sound right, so I looked it up. Its $2500 per return. Phaseouts for MFJ start at 135,000.
So if he's got 90,000 @ 6.5%, that would be in the ballpark of $5,850 yearly, so he'd be limited out.
I have no idea what his effective tax rate is, but if it is 20%, he'd be saving $500 on the student loan interest deduction, so it sure is nice, but it isn't a giant deal one way or the other.
That's a little bit down in the weeds. If you have any questions, shoot. The big deal is that if it is in a retirement fund already, don't distribute it until you know what you're doing. [Reply]
Originally Posted by BryanBusby:
That's before factoring in the threshold to where going itemized would be better than standard is much higher now.
Instead of taking awful CP advice or blindly pissing nearly 100k, I'd talk with an advisor.
For rizzle, yo.
But student loan interest isn't an itemized deduction like Home Mortgage interest is. It is a 1040 adjustment on the (used to be) front page, so it will reduce AGI before the standard deduction is applied. [Reply]
