“Dear Steve,
I work retail making $11 hr. I’m also in the army reserve. I was attending Everetts College before I was deployed to Afghanistan. I was there for 1 year. I was not able to continue classes.
When I returned and tried to get back in school I was refused that because there was a large unpaid balance.
What happened was the loan that I had signed for was returned to the bank because I was no longer was attending school since I was in Afghanistan.
Returning to no job was bad enough but I now had a unpaid school balance and a large student loan.
I’mm still working retail making $11hr. I was considering filling a chapter 7 bankruptcy.
I have a couple of private student loan with chase bank. Can I include the private student loan in my chapter 7 bankruptcy?
Fidel”
Dear Fidel,
First off, thank you for your military service.
There are some benefits active duty military service members are eligible for. During the period of your deployment you should have notified the school of your departure and they would have not been able to charge you more than six percent interest while you were gone. This is a benefit active duty military members are eligible for under the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act.
You will need to send a written request to your servicer plus a copy of your orders calling you to active duty. You can submit your request at any time during your active-duty service or up to 180 days after leaving active duty, and the interest-rate reduction must be applied retroactively for the whole period of active-duty service.
Your situation is potentially complicated by the fact it appears you did not make any payment arrangements before you left. This could be a problem.
If you can let me know the URL of the college or the address I’ll check into any state specific options that might be available. I was unable to locate a college with the exact spelling you gave me.
I’m not sure a chapter 7 bankruptcy would be the first choice in this situation. You have apparently not been making good faith payments and that could hurt your chances of getting a discharge under any circumstance for the private student loans if the school was accredited at the time you attended.
If you can’t afford to make the payments and bankruptcy does not seem like a reasonable solution at the moment, another option would be for you to get in touch with a student loan lawyer who can run interference for you with the private student loan people and buy you some time.
Depending on how delinquent you are it could get you past your statute of limitation in your state so you could then file bankruptcy and instantly discharge all those private student loans. If that sounds like a potential solution that you’d like to explore, click here.
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