I repaid my pupil mortgage early, however the Pupil Loans Firm (SLC) remains to be deducting repayments – £1,089 over two months – from my earnings. The issue started when SLC assigned my ultimate, lump‑sum fee to the unsuitable account. Its programs due to this fact present me as owing £12,000. It has admitted an error, however can’t say once I’ll be refunded.
SM, London
Pupil mortgage repayments are crippling sufficient, however judging from the cries of ache in my inbox evidently technical issues, human error and buck-passing by SLC and HMRC are compounding the difficulty.
JA from Torquay has additionally appealed to me after studying my report final yr on a graduate who feared she was overpaying hundreds of kilos as a result of SLC was unable to substantiate her steadiness.
“I haven’t been capable of view a press release since 2019,” JA wrote. “SLC says it doesn’t know my steadiness as HMRC has put a mark on my account. HMRC says it may possibly’t assist.”
It’s deeply regarding that issues deemed intractable by SLC and HMRC when a buyer complains may be miraculously solved if a headline looms. SLC was capable of pinpoint its error in SM’s case inside two days of my contact. “We apologise that when he referred to as to repay his pupil mortgage we incorrectly utilized the fee to the bursary aspect of his account, as an alternative of his mortgage steadiness.” He was refunded his overpaid £1,089 the following day.
HMRC and SLC investigated JA’s state of affairs at my instigation, and found that his employer had miscalculated the mortgage repayments deducted three years in the past. “The account has been impacted by a discrepancy within the quantity of deductions reported by his employer to HMRC for the 19/20 tax yr,” SLC says. “This has brought about an extra reimbursement of £63, which he didn’t, in actual fact, should pay, to be utilized to his pupil mortgage account. On account of this discrepancy, entry to his on-line account was restricted.”
HMRC confirmed it was rectifying the difficulty and SLC is anticipating it to ship his end-of-year reconciliation file by the tip of this month.
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