A new survey shows that a third of students believe that their toxic student loan debt will stop them buying a house or starting a family. 

Do we want a society where many of our young people feel unable to do normal things like starting a family? Do we want a society where student loan borrowers are still in enormous debt in their 50s, or later, and unable to start any form of retirement savings? Does this affect you?

The government has today announced a large increase in the additional repayments that it will be seeking from student loan debtors living overseas. In the last financial year, the IRD's collection efforts yielded extra payments of $79 million from overseas debtors. The new target is $100 million. In addition, 20 student loan debtors have been targeted for arrest, and 20 are being pursued through the Australian Courts (thousands are also being pursued through Baycorp in Australia and similar debt collectors in the UK). 

Because the IRD and the government receive a large pay off from every dollar spent chasing student loan debts, there is no chance of the IRD cutting back in this area. The government's announcements make it clear that if you have a student loan debt problem you need to deal with it now. The sooner you deal with it, the more options you have. Please contact us if would like advice on the best options for you.

We have a client who paid thousands to a law firm for student loan advice and negotiations with the IRD. They wasted the client's money trying to get the IRD to accept a full and final settlement amount of $25,000 for the student loan debt, when a 5 minute look at the account and a basic understanding of student loan law would have told them there was never any chance at all that the IRD would accept less than $60,000 in this particular case. 

We are appalled and shocked.