And this is one of the reasons why.........

[j-kid]

.....you do not co-sign for ANYONE:

http://www.change.org/ella

Very sad, but can be used as a teachable moment to avoid others falling into a similar trap.

[Nunya]

.....you do not co-sign for ANYONE:

So you wouldn't co-sign for your kid?

I think the company going after her is heartless, and I applaud her co-signing for her son as he tried to further his education. It's not like she co-signed for a damn car...

[kia027]

Nobody told me when i cosigned the loan that I would be forced to pay them back even if my son died.

I dont mean to sound heartless but this is why one must always read the fine print before you put your signature on anything.

When you are co-signing a loan you are taking on the responsibility of that payment should the other party defaults.

We have always gotten the advice that you let the kid take out the loan on their own and u can help pay it back but dont cosign

edited to add: what I think is in addition to signing the change.org pledge people should donate a dollar to the lady to help pay the loan. At this time the petition has 197,103 supporters.. I am sure 10,000 people could donate a dollar to help.

[RichD]

is death considered a default?

maybe the loans of this nature should be automatically insured.

[kia027]

is death considered a default?

No information available about the loan terms she had but found this on wiki

Death of Co-Signer

• In the event that the co-signer on a loan dies, most often the borrower is still responsible to repay the loan and no demands are made upon the estate of the co-signer, according to Darrell Lautaret, Chief Executive Officer and President of Mission Bank in Kingman, Arizona
  
  

Read more: Who Is Responsible for Loans Upon Death of Co-Signer? | eHow.com http://www.ehow.com/facts_5985223_re...#ixzz2DimPOhVx

and speaking of insurance, the mother mentions that he left a child. I know when we are young we dont think about these things but he should have had some life insurance to help the child should anything happen. There may be another lesson to be learned in this case.

[RichD]

what about if the borrower dies?

[kia027]

what about if the borrower dies?

see below.. edited the post to attach information

[RichD]

below where ? the stuff about he cosigner dying?

[kia027]

below where ? the stuff about he cosigner dying?

Yes ; if one dies the other pays basically.

[j-kid]

Bottom line is, it is always at the discretion of the lender, if yuh did co-sigh di papers, if dem waa figive di loan. Tuh answer yuh question Nunya, NOOOOO mi will not co-sign for not even mi mother, especially if mi hav ah family whe ah depend pan mi steady income. Many ah kids have been jacked up by dem owna parents an left holding di bag wen payments are not made as they agreed tuh. I will gladly help to re-pay the loan if dem is responsible an dem run into some financial trouble (lose job, serious illness, death, etc). May as well me tek out di loan inna mi own name fi dem, den insurance in case mi run inna life difficulties.

[Gen]

cant badda wid co-sign

i feel like might as well mi tek out the loan inna mi owna name rather than co-sign something.

[Nunya]

Can smaddy explain wha 'co-sign' really mean? Is it like being a 'guarantor'? Cause I would do that for my son, especially if it relates to his education. I just don't see the issue.

[WitchyOoman]

Can smaddy explain wha 'co-sign' really mean? Is it like being a 'guarantor'? Cause I would do that for my son, especially if it relates to his education. I just don't see the issue.

[definition] Cosigner: A term referring to a person, other than the principal borrower, who signs for a loan. The cosigner(s) assume(s) equal liability for the loan. A third party(ies) to a loan who provide(s) a guarantee that a loan will be repaid. The guarantee by the cosigner reduces the risk that the lender will lose the money s/he has distributed to the borrower. The cosigner(s) sign(s) an agreement with the lender stating that if the borrower fails to repay the loan, the cosigner(s) will assume legal liability for it. Persons with little or poor credit history sometimes cannot receive a loan without (a) cosigner(s), and (a) cosigner(s) serve(s) as such a person's surety.*


* Condensed by me, Taken straight from Black's Law Dictionary

[kia027]

Can smaddy explain wha 'co-sign' really mean? Is it like being a 'guarantor'? Cause I would do that for my son, especially if it relates to his education. I just don't see the issue.

The issue is the unthinkable happened and her son is gone but she no longer thinks it is fair that she repay the loan that she co-signed

[WitchyOoman]

[definition] Cosigner: A term referring to a person, other than the principal borrower, who signs for a loan. The cosigner(s) assume(s) equal liability for the loan. A third party(ies) to a loan who provide(s) a guarantee that a loan will be repaid. The guarantee by the cosigner reduces the risk that the lender will lose the money s/he has distributed to the borrower. The cosigner(s) sign(s) an agreement with the lender stating that if the borrower fails to repay the loan, the cosigner(s) will assume legal liability for it. Persons with little or poor credit history sometimes cannot receive a loan without (a) cosigner(s), and (a) cosigner(s) serve(s) as such a person's surety.*


* Condensed by me, Taken straight from Black's Law Dictionary

So, to answer your question, Nunya: YES.

A cosigner is a guarantor that the loan will be paid if the principal borrower, for any reason whatsoever (including death) defaults on payment of said loan. The loaner can, at any time, for any reason related to non-payment or tardy payment or mere partial payment, go after the cosigner to get the rest of the loan... usually, at that point, the loaner can then go after the cosigner for the entire amount at once - no longer needing to take payments. And a cosigner can lost her/his home (in most states), their car (in all states), and any other real property (ie - real estate) other than their primary home (in all but 2 or 3 states) in order to satisfy a loan for which they have cosigned.

When I was a junior in high school, my father told me flat out that he was NOT going to help pay for my college education, despite my good grades, because I was "an extremely lazy student who never cracked the spine of a book" (to use Daddy's exact words), who was "a very bad wager that [he] wouldn't bet on" (more of his exact words - they stung badly and I never forgot them!), and he predicted that (to use more of his exact words) "[I] was never going to be able to continue to coast my way all the way through college to a bachelors degree", so he therefore was "not going to waste [his] hard-earned money on so poor a chance". He also told me that he was "writing me off as a human being right now" and that I "was never going to amount to anything" so "[I] had better go out and learn how to give good <censored oral sex act, plural> now, so that [I] could earn a living". Yep. I was 16, and that's exactly what my father told me. Russians are really cold people. And, generally speaking, Jews are as tight-fisted with their money as they are commonly said to be. I have no idea where I came by my generosity and willingness to give my last dime to a stranger in need or share my last penny with a friend, honestly! So I got a second job... I was already working as a cashier at the local pharmacy. I got a job waitressing nights and weekends. After all, I had my then brand-new Oldsmobile Cutlass Brougham special edition sedan - my Babycakes! The very same now-antique Oldsmobile Brougham special edition sedan, Babycakes, that I still drive today!! My father's brother, Uncle Ed, gave it to me when I passed my driver's test and got my license. So I had my own car, and mobility, so I was free to come and go as I pleased, wasn't dependent upon my parents' goodwill for a ride or to borrow a car. I paid my own way through college, working at that diner waitressing job through college, as well as working as a belly dancer in a middle eastern food restaurant (a family place). And in my senior year at Hahnemann University, I also worked nights, weekends, and holidays in the hospital E.R. as the on-duty radiologic technologist. (the school permitted it's senior students to work like that, back then... I dunno if they still do that these days... I'm from the olden days, dwl) I did it on my own, much to my own pride. Didn't take a loan, didn't get a penny's worth of help or aid. of course, these days, that's damn near impossible to do... 30+ years ago, it was still possible.

There is a reason why I went off on a seeming tangent... wait patiently for it.

A year after I graduated high school - with great grades that I never worked for, my sister, L, graduated from high school with god grades for which she knocked herself out and struggled. My father cosigned a number of loans (she also got scholarships, to L's credit) for her to be able to go through PCP&S (Philadelphia College of Pharmacy & Sciences) to become a Pharmacist. L even took it further, became a Pharmacologist and got her Master's Degree, for which Daddy cosigned even more school loans. See, L was the "better bet"... BUT.....

L has always been... ahh... mentally fragile, shall we say, unstable. She is... non-functional... ill... has been for more years than I wish to count. L never did manage (she is now coming up on her 50th birthday in January) - in 25 years - to pay off her student loans. And Daddy and Mother lost a sizable chunk of their money from the sale of my childhood home when they sold it in 2004 to downsize and move into a condo. See, the liens against the house for those loans that they had cosigned all those years ago (for the better child, their favorite daughter) had to be satisfied.

And I was good about it, and kind enough, to ask them only once, before dropping it and never mentioning it again: "OK, so... who ended up as the better risk, after all, Daddy? Oh, right! *snapping-my-fingers* It sure wasn't me, was it?!"
Does that make me a b****? Maybe. But I come by my acerbic tongue honestly - both my father and my mother have it! And I was cruelly abused by both of their sharp acid tongues my entire life, right up until the moment in 2004 when this story occurred, when things finally turned about for me and I finally became The Bully of the Family That No One Ever Ever Crosses... it was about time that I got my turn! My uncle (at 80 years old) is tiring and too aged to continue as the family Patriarch; it is decided, I will be the family Matriarch soon... I have fought my way to the top, I fought my father (now 82 years old), tooth and nail, toe to toe, for 51 years now, and he is too old and too weak to fight me any longer, he will not fight me ever again, he knows he is old and beaten (finally!), and my uncle is wise enough to step down gracefully while he still can because he knows that I will continue to fight him, too, if he does not step down nicely now... I can taste it, I can smell it, like a shark scents blood in the water; it is now my turn, and I am the oldest of my generation anyhow, so it's most appropriate for me to be the Matriarch.

At any rate, Nunya, yes, a cosigner is 100% responsible for the repayment of a loan.
SO, unless you can afford to pay that loan, DO NOT cosign for it!