Why can’t you not pay your debt until you die, sure the interest will be insane but they can’t come after you if you’re dead
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Most debts have minimum payments. And if you die with debts, those debtors get paid out of your estate before you can pass that estate on to your children or other people you’d like to inherit it.
Well, usually the debt agreement gives your creditor the right to sue you if you don’t pay. And then there will be consequences like garnishing your wages, seizing bank accounts, seizing assets, your credit score being destroyed…
If you’re willing to be poor and un-sueable, then yes, you can do that. But it’s a miserable way to live.
Depending on the amount of the loan, while you’re alive you may face legal action seeking to forcibly collect the debt, including wage/tax garnishments, for missing payments repeatedly
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If you stop paying people back, no one will ever lend you money again. No more buying cars or houses, no more renting apartments, no more credit cards. Your paycheck may be garnished, leaving you with pennies to live on.
I guess if you have kind relatives who will feed and house you for free, you could make it work. But if they kick you out or die or something, you’re homeless and starving.
If it’s a small amount, your credit score is ruined and you can’t borrow any money ever. If you somehow pay cash for card and never buy a house, that can work, but many landlords will also check credit and not rent if they worry they’ll get stiffed. Life can get tough.
If it’s a substantial amount of money, you will get taken to court, and they will come for your assets, garnish your wages, and assure that you remain poor as well as indebted. It’s a pretty miserable life.
Borrowing a million dollars the month before you die might work if you have nothing you want to leave as an inheritance. Most people don’t know their death dates with that precision.
Almost all most loans require collateral, which is something you agree to let the lender take if you don’t pay your debt. If you don’t pay your mortgage or home equity loan, they take your house. If you don’t pay your car loan, they take the car.
There are some kinds of “unsecured” debt, like credit cards, that don’t have collateral. With those, the lender can get a court order for “wage garnishment”, where the government will force your employer to take money out of your paycheck to pay the lender.
There’s also the fact that lenders keep track of bad debtors, and if you fail to pay your debts, nobody will give you another loan.
And finally, once you die, any money you have will be used to pay the lenders first; your heirs will only get what’s left.
So what will happen if you don’t pay your debts for the rest of your life? You’ll lose your house, your car, you won’t be able to use a credit card or buy a house ever again, any money you make at a job will be taken away from you, and once you die, any money you have left over will be taken away too.
Is it possible to get some “free money” from The Man and never have to pay it back? Yeah. But it’s not worth it.
This may or may not matter to you, but that strategy would pretty much entirely preclude your heirs being able to inherit anything of yours. Debts cannot be inherited but all of your assets will go to your creditors before they go to any of your heirs.
But yeah, like the other commenters have said, people who give loans weren’t born yesterday and they’re going to make you agree to terms that let them take your assets to pay your debts long before the end of your natural life.
If you don’t pay your debt, then people will come collecting. If you continue to not pay, they’ll sue to be able to garnish your wages, plus extra to pay for the cost of actually chasing you to pay up.
Because they know if they let you have that option, that’s what you would do and so creditors don’t give you that option.
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