Under Water On Your Student Loans? Don't Count On Your Parents to Bail You Out

 In the 1990s, Wendi LaBorde took out student loans totaling about $75,000, but she could not repay those loans. Over time, interest accrued on the debt. 

In 2010, the Department of Education obtained a judgment against Ms. LaBorde for approximately $395,000--five times what she borrowed.

In 2014, LeBorde received the proceeds from her late mother's life insurance--$485,902, which was enough money to pay off the judgment on her student debt.

LaBorde didn't use the insurance money to pay off her student loans. Instead, she created a trust that named Connie Christine LeBorde, her daughter, the beneficiary. The trust bought a condo in California and then sold the condo and purchased a home in Riverside County, California, for $403,000. 

In 2020, the federal government sued LaBorde, accusing her of making a fraudulent transfer to avoid paying the judgment against her for her unpaid student loans. The feds pointed out that LaBorde's daughter, the trust beneficiary, lived in Arkansas and LaBorde lived in the Riverside County house. 

A federal court agreed with the federal government. Late last month, the court ruled that Laborde's transfer of life insurance money to the trust was fraudulent. It ordered that LaBorde be named the owner of the Riverside County house, making it subject to the government's lien for $437,000--the amount of her unpaid student loans plus accrued interest.

What happens next?  The federal government will enforce its lien on the California home where LaBorde was living. Ultimately, the house will probably be sold, and most of the proceeds will go to Uncle Sam.

Millions of Americans are burdened by college loans they can't repay. Many have given up even trying to pay off their student debt. Meanwhile, interest continues to accrue. It is not uncommon for people to owe three, four, or even five times the amount of their student loans due to penalties and accrued interest.

Undoubtedly, many of these debtors are counting on an inheritance from their parents or life insurance benefits to bail them out. Perhaps they intend to use inheritance money or life insurance proceeds to help prepare for retirement or purchase a modest home.

Unfortunately, as the LaBorde decision demonstrates, the feds can claim life insurance proceeds to satisfy a judgment for unpaid student loans. Moreover, the same logic that applies to life insurance may also apply to inheritances. At least one court has held that a student-loan debtor was not entitled to discharge student loans in bankruptcy because she did not use inheritance money to help pay off her student loans.

In retrospect, Ms. LaBorde's mother would have been wise to have made her granddaughter, Connie Christine LeBorde, the beneficiary of her life insurance policy. Connie could then have used the insurance proceeds to purchase a house and rent it to her mother at a modest price.  Structuring the transaction in that way would have avoided an allegation of fraud.

In my view, the LaBorde decision is unfortunate. I do not believe student-loan defaulters should be deprived of their inheritances or life insurance proceeds for the sole reason that they were unable to repay their student loans.

I want your house!

In re Standish: Should you be required to use your inheritance to pay off student debt?

 Martha Standish took out student loans when she was in her late 40s to get an undergraduate degree in accounting. Later she took out a Parent Plus Loan to help her daughter with college expenses.

Eleven years after graduating, Standish filed an adversary proceeding in a Kansas bankruptcy court seeking to discharge about $30,000 in student loans. By this time, she was 63 years old. She made $18.36 an hour working at an engineering firm, and her expenses slightly exceeded her income.

Bankruptcy Judge Robert Berger applied the Brunner test in deciding whether Ms. Standish qualified to have her student loans discharged under the Bankruptcy Code's "undue hardship" rule.  To be entitled to a student-loan discharge, Standish was required to make three showings:

1) "[S]he cannot maintain a minimal standard of living for herself and her dependents if forced to repay her student loans."

2)  "[A]dditional circumstances exist indicating that this state of affairs will persist [for] a significant portion of the repayment period . . . ."

3) "[S]he made good faith efforts to repay her loans."

After an extensive analysis, Judge Berger ruled in Standish's favor on two parts of the three-part Brunner test.  

First, he ruled that Standish could not maintain a minimal standard of living and make payments on her student loans. Thus, she met the first part of the Brunner test.

Second, Judge Berger ruled that Standish's dismal economic circumstances were unlikely to improve enough for her to pay off her student loans in the future. "As her age advances and her health deteriorates, she will soon reach a point at which her continuing employment is no longer possible," the judge observed. Moreover, Standish was unlikely to see her income go up. Based on these facts, Judge Berger ruled that Standish met the second part of the Brunner test.

Finally, regarding Brunner's "good faith" prong, Judge Brunner noted approvingly that Standish had "diligently minimized her expenses while maximizing the income she could earn with her degree." She also made payments on some of her loans while deferring others.

Nevertheless, Judge Berger ruled that Standish failed the good-faith prong of the Brunner test. 

Why? Because she received an inheritance and did not use the inheritance money to pay off her student loans. Instead, she used her inheritance to help pay for her daughter's education and other expenses. 

As Judge Berger explained:

[Standish's] decision to dedicate her inheritance to her daughter's education and other expenses prohibits the Court from finding that her pursuit of a discharge is in good faith. [Standish] received around $45,000 from her mother's estate. None of that money was used to pay the student loans. It is notable that this money would have been enough to pay off all or almost all her student loans.

Judge Berger clearly sympathized with Ms. Standish. He ruled in her favor on two parts of the Brunner test and only ruled against her on the good-faith standard because of her inheritance. "It is a tragic irony,' Judge Berger wrote, "that [Standish's] very efforts to relieve her daughter of the financial enserfment caused by student loan debt doomed her effort to discharge her own student loans."

Millions of Americans are burdened by student loans that prevent them from buying a home or saving for retirement. Some are probably counting on an inheritance to offset the catastrophe of their student debt.

But Judge Berger's decision--which is in harmony with current law--should be a wake-up call to student debtors who believe an inheritance will allow them to retire with dignity despite crushing student debt. As the Standish decision illustrates, an inheritance might foreclose bankruptcy relief for student borrowers even if they are otherwise qualified for relief under Brunner.

And--even more chilling to think about--the feds might try to garnish inheritance money from people who defaulted on their student loans. To my knowledge, this has not happened yet, but that possibility should not be discounted. 

Just another reason why Congress should amend the Bankruptcy Code and allow honest debtors to discharge their student loans in bankruptcy like any other nonsecured debt.

References

In re Standish, 628 B.R. 692 (Bankr. D. Kan. 2020).