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Friday, April 6, 2012

What Happens if a Educational Loan Cosigner Dies?

By John Johnson


College tuition money may be hard to come by. For many, scholarships seem unattainable if your grades or sports skills aren't there. Grant cash can also be reserved for the poorest of the poor. This leaves many students in the middle, and these students typically sign up for education loans. Lots of these students require a cosigner on their school loans. Many people wonder what happens if a student loan cosigner dies. This can be determined by a couple of elements like what type of loan the student has and what status the loan is in.

Federal loans and private loans are the two types of loans available to college students. The Stafford Loan program is low-interest education loans that do not need a credit check. These loans require a cosigner only if the student is considered a dependent student under the age of 24. The student will be the one ultimately responsible for repaying these loans and also the cosigner is never held liable.

In the event the student loan cosigner dies with a federal Stafford Loan, the student is nonetheless responsible to pay. Should the student becomes deceased, the loan is forgiven and the estate is not held liable. In some cases, the loan can be forgiven if the education loan cosigner dies. Check with your individual lender to find out if this is the situation for you.

Private loans possess a stricter application process and are harder to come by. These are provided by large banks and lending institutions as a way to bridge the gap between school fees and the amounts awarded by federal loans and grants. Sometimes tuition is so high that private loans are needed, but students are young and haven't had time to build credit. In these cases, students have to get a cosigner. What happens to these loans if the student loan cosigner dies? These loans are treated much like any other private loan via a bank like a car or home loan. As long as the payments aren't in default, nothing will happen towards the estate of the deceased in the event the education loan cosigner dies. If the payments are in default, there is extremely small opportunity that the estate will probably be held liable. They're more likely to pursue the living person on the loan and send them to creditors or pursue other litigation against them, since they had been an equal partner on the loan.

Cosigners can be an important component of student loan applications. What to do if a student loan cosigner dies is really a common question, but the procedure is treated just like any other loan, with the exception of federal loans.




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