Hi Tortilla, Thanks for your reply. I thought that debts were cancelled at age 60 too - but SLC claims that because they say I am in arrears, that doesn't apply. I suspect that they engineer arrears to get around this entitlement but of course there's no way I can prove it. Catch 22.

I would be grateful if anyone can offer advice on my predicament. The situation is complicated so please bear with me as I try to explain it as simply as possible. I am now a 62 year old pensioner. As a mature student, I took out two Student Loans in 1995 and 1996. Each subsequent year I applied for and was granted deferrment. In 1997 I went abroad and have not lived in UK since. I have not worked so never reached the income threshold to begin repaying the loans. Because I was travelling (accompanying my husband in his overseas postings) it was difficult to send and receive mail promptly. I therefore had a post restante address in UK and mail was sent on to me wherever I was. This resulted in occasional delays, but I always kept SLC informed and as far as I was aware responded to their communications as quickly as possible. Several times I contacted them when the usual deferment application papers had not reached me at the appropriate times. I was careful to always apply for deferment each year. Nevertheless, SLC denied receiving my applications and claimed that I was in arrears. I have disputed this claim but they are getting very heavy with me . I am so worried as they are saying that I owe almost £2000 in arrears and the interest is accumulating alarmingly fast. In 2006, I received a letter from Wescot Services (SLC's nominated debt recovery company) saying that they were not pursuing the debt any further. I took this to mean that the matter was now settled and took no further action. However, deferment applications continued to arrive , so I filled them in and returned them together with a copy of Wescot's letter, reminding them that I had been told that the matter had been dropped. No response from them was ever recieved. Earlier this year, I started to get very heavy letters from them demanding financial information on my circumstances. The information I supplied is that I will be 63 in October and my sole income is my State pension of £105 per week from which there is no remaining disposable element. I am worried sick about the situation. I don't have access to additional funds. I believed (and still do ) that I had complied totally with the terms of the loan. I have always kept SLC informed but they deny receipt of two of my deferment applications. I now always send my letters to them by recorded delivery as they so often deny receiving mail. If you have any advice to contribute, I would be so grateful as the worry is affecting my health. I can see no way out of the situation. I live in the EU but not in the UK so I have no idea what SLC can do to me. I completely dispute their claim that I owe any arrears. Their record on "failing to receive" mail is very suspicious and there seems to be no truly independent adjudicator. The so-called independent assessor works within SLC so I don't see how he/she can really be independent.