Lien on House

I have been out of school for the past 14 years and have paid off my  initial student loan twice over. The problem is my original loan was $7,000 @ 12.5% interest which was the rate in 1992. I was paying my loan at a rate of $800/month and may extra payments.

In 1997 I was laid off I informed Equifax the agency that was handling my student that I had to reduce my payments, they informed me that I had to fill out a financial statement which I did. The next step they took was to take my income tax. They have been taking my income tax, and GST since 1998 which has been very difficult because I am a single parent with two children. After all I still receive letters stating that I owed more than $12,000 from accumulating interest from a small balance.

When I first receive the letter I called CBCL and spoke to a person from who informed me that I had paid over $16,000 plus in student loans. At that time I decided I was not going to pay anymore. In 2003, I signed on a mortgage for my parents, even though my name is on the title/mortgage I am not the one making payments the monthly payments. In 2003, I got a call from a Mr. King from CBCL informing that they knew I owned property and that if I did not repay the full balance they were going to place a lien on my parent house and take the money when they are ready to sell.

At this time I explained to Mr. King that the house did not belong to me and that it belong to my parents, he informed that since my name is on the mortgage the lien would stay.

Can they put a lien on a house because my name is on the mortgage?

Is there a statute of limitation to repay student loans? And how do I stop paying when I have already repaid my loan almost three times.

Help

september, can you explain how you believe you have been forced to pay your loan three times over?

That seems to me to be the first issue we shoud focus on to try to help you.

Colly

The information you provided is a little confusing September. You said your original loan amount was $7000 but have been paying $800/mo from 1992 to 1997 plus extra payments. Notwithstanding the extra payments you would have paid around $48,000. You said you received a letter stating that you still owe $12,000 and a verbal confirmation from CBCL of $16,000 paid to date. Nothing adds up.

You obviously borrowed more than $7000 or you are paying back someone else's loan. I strongly suggest that you insist on a full accounting of your debt from start to present from the collection agency before you continue making any more payments. There is more to this than meets the eye.

Thanks for the replies, in the interest of space and time I was trying to give a condensed version, hopefully this will clear things up.

I attended University from 1989 -1992, I received a total of approximately $17,000 in OSAP $10,000 in grants(because I had a dependent) and $7,000 in loans. The total amount of my student loan was a$7,000 @12.9 interest which was calculated weekly (so I was told by an Eqifax Collection Agency which was the agency handling the Loans from the TD Bank). I was unable to find a job right after I finished school so consequently, six months later my loan went into default.

In 1993 I found summer employment and began paying my student loan off. I started paying aggressively, paying $800/month for 6 months. I made theses payments directly at Equifax's office located on Sheppard Ave. in Toronto. At the end of summer my employment was over and I was unable to keep paying $800/month so I dropped the payments to $100/month. 

I worked on and off until 1995 when I again found full time employment, during this time I was paying approx. $75-100/month.

When I found full time employment, I once again started to pay back my loan aggressively at a rate of $$400-600/month.

At the end of 1995, I received a statement from Equifax which showed I had a balance still remaining of approx. $7,000. I called Equifax and asked why my balanced outstanding was almost the same as my original loan and what told that the interest being added on at a weekly rate caught accumulated during the time period where I was making minimum payments.

At the end of 1996 I was downsized and out of work. I was in dire need and could not keep up with the $100/month payments. At this time I tried to get a loan from the bank to consolidate my student loan and was told by both CIBC and RBC that they did not give loans to consolidated student loans.

In 1997, I got a letter stating that HRDC was authorized to take my Income Tax, and they have been taking my income taxes since. In 1998 I once again started to pay my student loans at a rate of $100/month on top of HRDC taking my Income Tax approx. $1,800/year over a 2 year period (1997-1998)

I continued to pay approx $100-200/month from 1999 until 2001, when I received a phone call from CBCL. The agent informed me that I still had an outstanding balance of $12,000 for my student loan. When I asked him how was that possible, he informed me that although CBCL was taking my Income Tax and I was making payments, the payments and my income tax was not enough to clear up the principal and that all the payments were going toward the interest.

It was at this time that he told me that although he was not supposed to release the information, he told me I had paid over $16,000 toward my student loan since 1993. I asked him, if that was the case why are they still coming after me for payments, he stated that the principal was never completely paid off and that almost all of my payments went toward paying on the interest.

It was at this time, I got upset and decided I was not going to pay any more, HR DC continues to take my Income Tax and GIST rebate.

I am not sure if payments were lost/not applied to file when it was transfered from Equifax to CBCL. What I can tell you is that I am as perplexed and as confused as many of you are regarding my large outstanding balances.

I have kept all my receipts and copies of my financial statements that I sent over the years to Equifax regarding my student loan payments. What I can not find unfortunately are some of the monthly statements that they have mailed me.

I sure many of you are skeptical of my story, all that I can say is unfortunately for me it is all true.

 

Sorry, September, I certainly didn't mean to sound skeptical either ... just trying to point out that more info was needed in order to help.  Your story is very believable (all too believable!) -- the initial post just wasn't worded perspicuously.

If you have all of your receipts, you should be able to figure this mess out without the statements from Equifax.  If you have an accountant, you might want to take this info to him/her for help crunching the numbers.

Their numbers might be right, but I think you should attempt to get an independent assessment.