Cosigner Release for Private Student Loans with Sallie Mae
My question involves collection proceedings in the State of: Virginia and New Jersey
Allow me to start by saying my loan is completely up to date and I have not defaulted at all / been late on a payment or anything of the sort in the 3 years that I've been paying back my loan.
I graduated from college in 2007 with over $100k in private student loans. My repayment plan started out as 15 years with the first 4 years being interest only payments, and the last 11 being principal and interest payments. We then recently changed it to 25 years for repayment with me continuing to pay just interest payments for the remaining year (my last year of the 4 from the original plan) and then the last 21 years being interest & principal. This was to have my payments only jump up to about $525/mo rather than $1000/mo. My statements right now average right around $300/mo (interest accrued every month) and I have steadily been paying over twice that amount each month for the past 3 years along with random payments in between my billing periods as I come into money that I can throw at this loan.
I've paid so much back that even though I request to have my extra funds I pay each month applied to my principal (you have a choice with sallie mae to have extra funds either applied to your principal or towards your next's month's payment) that Sallie Mae has been doing both. I don't technically owe a payment until February of next year. My dad cosigned on my loan and recently he tried to refinance his home and was denied specifically because of the fact that they saw that he was cosigned on my loan.
For the last 3 months we have been fighting Sallie Mae to have them release my dad. Each time we submit the application they respond with "You have not made the required amount of on-time principal and interest payments". My credit, salary situation, etc. are all fine, it is this reason alone that they are denying us.
We have spoken with customer service at a level higher than the people you would normally reach by calling their 800 number. We were given information that we were short just $270 from reaching their required amount for release so that very day we were given that information I made a $1000 payment and resubmitted my application for cosigner release. We were denied with the exact same reason stated above.
I'm only 25 years old. In the past 3 years I have paid about $23,000.00 towards my loan all by myself. I am just about $1500 away from getting my account to the amount I actually BORROWED (all of my payments have gone towards accrued interest and capitalized interest). Honestly I think I've done pretty well paying off my loan and it's an insult to be told I haven't given them enough money.
Beyond frustrated! Is there anything legally that can be done? Sallie Mae states that you only have to make 24 on-time principal and interest payments to have your cosigner released, and that is what we understood when we signed up for this loan. We've gone way beyond the 24 months (we're at 36 now). They even told us the amount we were short from being approved and I paid it and more just to be on the safe side!
Any advice is appreciated.
Re: Cosigner Release for Private Student Loans with Sallie Mae
Quote:
Sallie Mae states that you only have to make 24 on-time principal and interest payments to have your cosigner released,
is that in your loan agreement or do you have some proof of that?
since you are not in the principal and interest payment portion of your loan, you have made no scheduled interest and principle payments so it would not apply. You have made 36 interest payments on time but no principle payments on time because you have none scheduled so you could not have made them yet.