Back in 2019, when more than 44 million Americans had a combined student loan<\/a> debt of $1.5 trillion, insurance firm Haven House surveyed borrowers about the impact of death on their student loans<\/a> and found that a large majority \u2014 73% of respondents \u2014 didn\u2019t know what would happen to their debt if they died.<\/p>\n Social Security: Defaulted Student Loans Can Lead to Benefit Garnishments \u2014 How To Avoid It<\/a><\/em><\/strong> Hopefully student loan borrowers know more now. Although private loan terms differ from lender to lender according to their policy agreements, holders of federal student loans (92% of all student loans, per Forbes<\/a>), will get their outstanding debt discharged by the Department of Education (ED) if they die.<\/p>\n But what about any surviving spouses and privately held loan debt incurred by the deceased?<\/p>\n As Lending Tree\u2019s Student Loan Hero<\/a> noted, there are three instances in which a surviving spouse may be held liable to pay the remaining debt of the departed borrower. A spouse may be required to repay a deceased partner\u2019s student loan if they:<\/p>\n In the case of a loan that was co-signed by a spouse, there\u2019s a chance that they could be legally responsible for repaying it if the primary borrower dies. If you co-signed one or more of your spouse\u2019s private student loans, your legal obligations may remain regardless of marital status. However, it depends on the loan.<\/p>\n For federal student loans, the loan will be discharged because co-signers aren\u2019t required. If you were a co-signer for their private student loan, you\u2019ll need to contact the lender to see if there is any possibility of getting out of paying the loan.<\/p>\n Couples take on a lot of shared financial responsibility when they marry. This doesn\u2019t normally extend to student loan debt \u2014 except if the couple combines their respective debts into a joint spousal consolidation loan (or one partner co-signs for another\u2019s debt, as mentioned earlier).<\/p>\n When you take out a joint spousal consolidation loan, you will be using a private refinancing company, which might result in one half of a marriage or legal partnership take over the other\u2019s debt as a sole borrower (and be left on the hook for repaying the remainder of the loan by themselves) should the other half pass away.<\/p>\n Most states abide by equitable asset distribution laws, however, there are nine states that currently have community property laws, where all assets and debts earned during a marriage are treated as community property \u2014 and are therefor equally owned by both spouses, regardless of who registered, bought or incurred them.<\/p>\n If you live in one of these states \u2014 Arizona, California, Idaho, Louisiana, Nevada, New Mexico, Texas, Washington and Wisconsin \u2014 a student loan is considered community property and, unfortunately, will be charged against the surviving spouse if it was taken out after marriage and before divorce.<\/p>\n Take Our Poll: Are You In Favor of More Inflation Relief in 2023?<\/a><\/em><\/strong> Additionally, borrowers that have refinanced a federal loan are in a tricky situation because their loan has changed from a dischargable federal student loan to a potentially dischargable, less-protected private student loan. Again, in the event of a borrower\u2019s passing, the company providing the refinanced loan will need to be contacted and the policy reviewed.<\/p>\n More From GOBankingRates<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n This article originally appeared on GOBankingRates.com<\/a>: Does My Spouse Have To Pay My Student Loans If I Die?<\/a><\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n sebra \/ Shutterstock.com Back in 2019, when more than 44 million Americans had a combined student loan debt of $1.5 trillion, insurance firm Haven House surveyed borrowers about the impact of death on their student loans and found that a large majority \u2014 73% of respondents \u2014 didn\u2019t know what would happen to their debt …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":44315,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[161],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brandon.ddtest.info\/multisite-test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44314"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brandon.ddtest.info\/multisite-test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brandon.ddtest.info\/multisite-test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brandon.ddtest.info\/multisite-test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brandon.ddtest.info\/multisite-test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=44314"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.brandon.ddtest.info\/multisite-test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44314\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brandon.ddtest.info\/multisite-test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/44315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.brandon.ddtest.info\/multisite-test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=44314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brandon.ddtest.info\/multisite-test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=44314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.brandon.ddtest.info\/multisite-test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=44314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Learn: More Younger Americans Were Able To Buy Houses Thanks to Student Loan Pause<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n1. Co-Signed a Partner\u2019s Student Loan<\/h3>\n
2. Combined Debt Into a Joint Spousal Consolidation Loan<\/h3>\n
3. Live in a Community Property State<\/h3>\n
Student Loan Forgiveness: Timeline of Events Leading Up To the Supreme Court Review<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"