Thousands of student loan recipients may not have to pay back their student loan debts––because lenders appear to have lost critical paperwork. Insufficient ownership records (among other missing documentation) have left creditors unable to collect the affected debts in court, according to a New York Times report.

The National Collegiate Student Loan Trusts, one of the nation’s largest owners of private student loans, has struggled to produce ownership records of its loans, which were originally bundled and sold by banks to investorsthrough a process known as securitization. None of these private loans were guaranteed by the federal government. In a recent legal filing, National Collegiate’s lawyers caution, “As news of the servicing issues and the trusts’ inability to produce the documents needed to foreclose on loans spreads, the likelihood of more defaults rises.”