Private student loans
You are being sued over a private student loan
Private student loans are ordinary contract debts, so the holder sues you in civil court like any other creditor. These loans are also sold and re-sold repeatedly, and the servicer's name on your statements is usually not the entity suing. That distance between the school, the original lender, and today's plaintiff is where the documentation most often breaks.
Which kit fits: If a trust, fund, or purchaser is the named plaintiff, the Debt Buyer Kit fits. If the original lender is suing in its own name, use the Original Creditor Kit.
The deadline is the only thing that is urgent today
Your summons states how many days you have to file a written response, generally 14 to 35 days from the date you were served. If that date passes without a filing, the plaintiff can ask the clerk for a default judgment and win without producing any document at all. Everything on this page comes after your Answer is filed.
This page is about private student loans. If your loan is federal, filing a court Answer is not your path — contact your federal servicer about rehabilitation, consolidation, or an income-driven plan.
Where their paperwork usually falls short
- No signed promissory note for the specific loan being sued on
- A chain of title with missing links across several sales and servicer changes
- No disbursement records showing money going to a school for a specific term
- An affidavit from a servicer employee describing records the servicer did not create
- No accounting of how capitalized interest and fees produced the claimed balance
Defenses commonly raised in these cases
- Lack of standing / no proof of assignment
- Broken chain of title
- No proof of a signed promissory note
- Amount claimed is unverified
- Statute of limitations
Raise the defenses that match your facts. The toolkit explains each one and when it applies before you select it.
What makes this kind of case different
Federal loans are a different world
Federal student loans are generally not collected through a civil lawsuit. They are handled through the loan system itself — rehabilitation, consolidation, income-driven plans, and administrative wage garnishment that does not require a court judgment. If your loan is federal, this toolkit is not the right tool, and the Department of Education's servicer is where to start.
Identify who is actually suing you
The plaintiff on a private student loan case is often a trust with a long name, and the servicer that sent your statements is a separate company. The trust has to show how the loan reached it, not merely that the servicer has records about it.
The promissory note is the core document
Ask for the signed or electronically executed note for this loan, along with the disclosures that went with it. A generic template note that does not bear your signature or an authenticated electronic record is not the same thing.
Ask where the money went
A student loan is disbursed to a school for a specific enrollment period. Disbursement records tying the loan to a school, a term, and an amount are ordinary business records, and they should exist.
Your next four steps
- 1Confirm whether the loan is private or federal before doing anything else.
- 2Write the date you were served on the first page of the papers and calculate your deadline.
- 3File a written Answer with the clerk of the court named on the summons and mail a copy to the plaintiff's attorney with a certificate of service.
- 4Serve discovery asking for the signed promissory note, the complete chain of assignments, and the disbursement and payment history.
Sued over a different kind of debt?
Educational information and document preparation only. Make Them Prove It is not a law firm and does not give legal advice. Rules and deadlines differ by state and by court, so confirm them with your court clerk or a licensed attorney in your state.