Amnat Charoen family can’t shake loose student debt

[snoop1130]

Amnat Charoen family can’t shake loose student debt

By Khu Boonmat
The Nation

 

 

An Amnat Charoen man and his daughter have complained that land they owned was put up for auction to cover her Bt40,000 debt to the Student Loan Fund (SLF) even though they repaid the debt with full interest in June last year.

 

Wijarn Yaowabut, 66, and his daughter On-uma, 40, told The Nation on Monday that On-uma borrowed Bt40,000 in 2002 for her tuition at a secondary school in Pana district. She married soon after graduation and hadn’t yet fully repaid the debt, so they received a court warrant in October 2007, indicating the SLF was suing On-uma, as well as Wijarn as her guarantor. A settlement was reached in which they would repay Bt500 a month.

 

Wijarn admitted that some payments were missed, but during 2007 and 2018 they repaid Bt13,000.

 

Told in June 2018 that two properties they owned would be seized and auctioned off to recoup the balance, Wijarn used the title deeds as collateral to secure a loan from the Bank for Agriculture and Agricultural Cooperatives. 

 

He showed Bt76,274, covering the original loan and interest, to an official at the Amnat Charoen Legal Execution Office, who advised him to repay the debt at Krungthai Bank and get a receipt. The offcial then said the matter would be put to rest by July 19.  

 

Wijarn also faxed the receipt to the SLF to notity the fund about the repayment, as per a bank personnel's advice.

 

Instead they were shocked to learn that the land auction was proceeding and they had to be available to stand as defendants in court from August to October. Wijarn’s 58-year-old wife Pranom, who is afflicted with heart disease and diabetes, fainted on hearing the news, he said. 

 

“I repaid the debt and followed the advice of the Legal Execution officials and bank personnel. Why won’t this problem end?” Wijarn said in tears.

 

He plans to petition the provincial governor for help.

 

Contacted by The Nation, Somyotr Chanprasert – a lawyer representing the SLF – said he could take no further action without direct authorisation from the SLF. 

 

The SLF in turn said Wijarn should submit On-uma’s 13-digit ID card number so it could review the matter.

 

Source: https://www.nationthailand.com/news/30373388

 

-- © Copyright The Nation Thailand  2019-07-22

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[ukrules]

This is exactly what happens when dumb people are in charge of things.

[Briggsy]

1 minute ago, ukrules said:

This is exactly what happens when dumb people are in charge of things.

I assume you are referring to the Student Loan Fund. That is possible.

 

The alternative is that this is exactly what happens Thai citizens decide that loan repayments are optional and only pay when all other options to avoid land seizure have been exhausted and even then at the very last moment and maybe, in this instance, too late to stop proceedings. This is extremely common here, particularly involving loans repayable to government entities.

[nahkit]

17 hours ago, Briggsy said:

I assume you are referring to the Student Loan Fund. That is possible.

 

The alternative is that this is exactly what happens Thai citizens decide that loan repayments are optional and only pay when all other options to avoid land seizure have been exhausted and even then at the very last moment and maybe, in this instance, too late to stop proceedings. This is extremely common here, particularly involving loans repayable to government entities.

If it was too late to stop proceedings when he repaid the amount in June 2018 then surely the SLF would be obliged to return his Bt76,274 to him?

[Briggsy]

1 hour ago, nahkit said:

If it was too late to stop proceedings when he repaid the amount in June 2018 then surely the SLF would be obliged to return his Bt76,274 to him?

Of course.

 

But we are only hearing one side of the story here. 

 

This is a guy who took 16 years to repay a debt and only then at the very real threat of foreclosure. Not someone to be trusted at his word.

 

Anyway, back to my main point, that Thais often believe that loans to government entities do not have to be repaid. The frequent culprits are civil servants and state enterprise workers who can get loans at very low interest rates and then protest furiously when asked to repay them.