Negative on credit report

You all believe that a contract is a contract. I read on a petition site on a mother who is petitioning a student loan on her late son. She is the cosigner. 2 gov't student loans were "forgiven". But the private student loan is still demanding their money. Contract or not, I don't believe that is right. But she is fighting it. She has over 150,000 signatures. Which includes mine. I have no doubt on any of you wanting to bash her too. Especially you Phonic after your statement, "Great, so I guess myself and the other tax payers get to pick up that bill for you too."

Quote from LittleChloe : You all believe that a contract is a contract. I read on a petition site . . .

Just stop posting please.

Quote : Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to speak out and remove all doubt.

Quote from LittleChloe : You all believe that a contract is a contract. I read on a petition site on a mother who is petitioning a student loan on her late son. She is the cosigner. 2 gov't student loans were "forgiven". But the private student loan is still demanding their money. Contract or not, I don't believe that is right. But she is fighting it. She has over 150,000 signatures. Which includes mine. I have no doubt on any of you wanting to bash her too. Especially you Phonic after your statement, "Great, so I guess myself and the other tax payers get to pick up that bill for you too."

That's an unfortunate situation. I do however believe that if she co-signed on the loan, she is liable to pay the balance back. The government loans may have had wording that allowed the loan to be forgiven, I don't know the particulars.

She co-signed, and in doing so she said "if my son is unable to pay back the loan for whatever reason, I will pay it back." Now she's trying to take that back.

Sure, he died, and that sucks. But don't co-sign a loan if you can't pay it in the event something does happen. Instead of having people sign a petition, why not take donations to pay back the loan? I'm sure a $1 donation per person who signed the petition would have paid it back and then some by now.

By not paying it back, and "forcing" the company to just eat it, you're asking others to pay higher interest rates, loan fees, or not even get a loan entirely because they're more restrictive.

Anyhow, this is derailing the post. The OP's question has been answered repeatedly. Philosophical debates on what one person finds right or wrong is irrelevant. The contract is likely legally binding and beyond "read the contract" the next step is "get a lawyer to try to get out of the contract" and I doubt that's going to happen.

Many student loan companies also offer insurance to pay off the loan in the event that the child dies. You have to pay a little more to cover the costs, but if (god forbid) your child dies, you don't need to worry about that added expense. And if they don't, you can easily get generic life insurance for a couple bucks a month which would cover the cost of the loan.

But again, people want to avoid taking responsibility and just complain that life isn't fair when something bad happens and they didn't prepare for it. While it's very unfortunate that this person's child died, they could have prevented the loan default issue if they wanted to. While it might sound nice that the loan should just 'disappear', any sane person realizes that doesn't happen. The money has to come from somewhere - who should eat the cost? The loan company - which means higher rates for everyone else? The college - which means higher tuition costs for everyone else? The government - which means higher taxes for everyone else? Or the parents, who could have mitigated the risk if they wanted to. They rolled the dice and lost, and now have to live with the consequences.

It reminds me of the stories you hear every so often about homes that live outside of the city limits in rural areas that don't have fire department taxes. Or some that their county doesn't have a fire department at all, and relies on a neighboring county to provide the service - for a voluntary fee. People can either pay ~$100/year for fire protection services, or chose not to and get nothing. Most pay, but others figure that it won't happen to them, or the fire department will still help them for free. Low and behold, their home catches on fire, the fire engine shows up and just watches (to make sure it doesn't spread onto a paying homeowner's property). Then they yell and scream about how it's unfair, etc.

Quote from LittleChloe : You all believe that a contract is a contract. I read on a petition site on a mother who is petitioning a student loan on her late son. She is the cosigner. 2 gov't student loans were "forgiven". But the private student loan is still demanding their money. Contract or not, I don't believe that is right. But she is fighting it. She has over 150,000 signatures. Which includes mine. I have no doubt on any of you wanting to bash her too. Especially you Phonic after your statement, "Great, so I guess myself and the other tax payers get to pick up that bill for you too."

If you don't believe it, why did you sign on something that you don't believe in?

Just as simple as that

I agree with you guys, but wow you really poured it on her...

Quote from LittleChloe : You all believe that a contract is a contract. I read on a petition site on a mother who is petitioning a student loan on her late son. She is the cosigner. 2 gov't student loans were "forgiven". But the private student loan is still demanding their money. Contract or not, I don't believe that is right. But she is fighting it. She has over 150,000 signatures. Which includes mine. I have no doubt on any of you wanting to bash her too. Especially you Phonic after your statement, "Great, so I guess myself and the other tax payers get to pick up that bill for you too."

She cosigned a loan. She is equally responsible for the debt - part of cosigning is accepting that you are liable to pay in the case that the primary borrower is not.

While I accept that the situation is disappointing for the mother, it doesn't change the facts. She didn't plan well. If she wasn't able to repay the loan, she shouldn't have cosigned it in the first place.