Student loan
Hello to all,
This is my situation: I ceased to be full time 1995. In 1998 I filled for bankruptcy and I was dishcharged 9 months later. In 2002, unfortunately, filled for my second bankruptcy and I was discharged the smae year.
This is my question: currently I owe 30,000$ of student loan, that I am carrying over since 1995. I did make payments arrangement with the government for 3 years, needless to say all my provincial tax refund are held by the government as well. But I cannot keep up with the amount of interest tha is charged on my loan. My trustee was not much of help.
I just want to know can I be discharged from this loan ?
Your help is much appreciated,
Thanks in advance
Vahe.B
As I write this (October, 2005), a student loan is only automatically discharged in a bankruptcy if you have been out of school for over 10 years. Since you graduated in 1997, 10 years have not yet elapsed, so your student loan would not automatically be discharged.However, the rules may change. An option for you may be a consumer proposal, so I suggest you contact a licensed trustee to fully explore your options.
While there are still a number of revisions and adjustments that need to be done, baring something significant, if you filed bankruptcy prior to Bill C-55 you will fall under the rules that existed at the time of filing your bankruptcy. So unfortunately based on the information available currently you will still be responsible for your student loans and currently I have no reason to believe this will change.
If you have already been bankrupt and your student loans are now 10 years old then you have the right to apply to the Court to have your student loans retro-actively discharged with your bankurptcy. Your trustee should be able to help you, or an insolvency lawyer. The procedure is not complicated, but it can take a while to work your way through it.
If neither of your trustees will help you then you’ll need to hire a lawyer (or try and prepare your own) to bring a motion before the Court to have your student loans retro-actively included in your bankruptcies.
In Ontario, the Registrar as made it fairly clear that he does not appreciate it when trustees act like lawyers so it is unlikely another trustee will be able to assist you. If your own trustee won’t help then I suggest you hire an experienced insolvency lawyer.