2015
Disability Discharges Are Available!
Student Loan Lawyer / 0 Comments /Many times former students become burdened with disabilities that adversely affect their ability to make their required student loan payments on their student loan debt. Fortunately, federal law and applicable regulations provide an avenue of relief, namely, the ability to obtain a discharge of the debt on the basis of those very disabilities. This is true for both Direct and FFEL student loans.
There is a specific process a borrower must go through in order to obtain the discharge. The federal Department of Education has delegated the task of evaluating disability applications to a company named Nelnet. A borrower must submit an application which is reasonable in length and which contains the pertinent information. To make sure the application is completed properly, it does usually make sense to have the assistance of counsel. However, set forth below are the very general paramaters of how to go about approaching getting a disability discharge.
To obtain a discharge, a disability may be shown in a variety of ways. First, if you are receiving Social Security Supplemental Security Income (“SSI”) or Social Security Disability Income (“SSDI”), you can use the documentation from applying for those processes to get a student loan discharge. This documentation must state that there will be a scheduled review of the Social Security award within five to seven years of the award date.
The other way to obtain a discharge is to submit a physician certification which shows evidence of disability. That certification must certify that the borrower is unable to engage in any substantial gainful activity by reason of a medically determinable physical or mental impairment that will either: a) be expected to result in death; b) has lasted for a continuous period of not less than sixty months; or c) can be expected to last for a continuous period of not less than sixty months.
Assuming that a disability discharge application is approved, the applicant should be aware that there is a three year monitoring period during which the borrower will have to update Nelnet on any earnings that exceed certain federal poverty guidelines.
This post is general in nature and there are nuances to the process not covered in this post which can be best explained by counsel. Of course, you as the reader may also submit a question via the contact form on this website.
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