How responsible am I if husband is sent to collections?

My husband took out a large amount in student loans *before* we were married. He has been unemployed for a while now, and the loan company will not defer the loans due to unemployment. We do not have enough money to pay all our bills, and all our savings are gone. So since all the income is MINE, rather than be evicted or have our heat turned off, I stopped paying his student loans - monthly payment is as much as our rent. They said they will send him to collections 45 days past due.

Since my name is not on the loans, will this hurt my credit report? The only thing our name are on together is our checking account and our apartment lease. If they come after him, what can they take or repossess? Can they garnish my wages since his name is on the checking account my paychecks go into?

These are private loans. He has federal loans as well, that are in deferrment, but the private loans (through Nelnet) keep telling us there is absolutely nothing they can do to defer payment at all, end of story. We live in the state of Ohio.

 

The total amount for this specific loan that I have stopped paying is $390 a month. He has two smaller, federal loans that are in deferrment, one is $90/month and the other about $170/month. The total we owe per month is $650 per month which is exactly what we pay in rent.

And we've called several times and spoken to several people. They say that these are private loans and the terms of the loans are he's not eligible for any more forbearance or deferrment. It sounds fishy to me. I had him call and ask if there was *anything* they could do, you'd think they'd want money later rather than never, and ruining our lives, but to hear them tell it, my intelligent husband picked a company that runs business like a loan shark...

 

I would love to. Every place we have contacted to consolidate the loans has told us we have insuffcient income and then never returned our calls. For four years. We've looked up places, we've asked friends, we've responded to offers in the mail. No one will reconsolidate, despite the fact that until now we have NEVER missed a payment. From what I have learned only federal loans are what people really want to reconsolidate. We even had one place let us have my father as a cosigner for the reconsolidation and they STILL denied our application for insufficient income.

If you know of a *legitimate* business that would acutally ACCEPT us to reconsolidate these PRIVATE loans, I would dance with joy to hear it.

 

Thank you for that link. I checked out a few of their websites while at work, and will research some of the companies and what terms they offer and have us work from there. Thanks for the links!