“During the payment pause, I’ve finally been able to save up a chunk of money for a down payment on a house. It’s been my goal to buy a condo and rent it out on Airbnb as an investment.”
Wouldn’t “pause” suggest this was a temporary arrangement? Wouldn’t that be the perfect time to save up a chunk of money for when payments became active again? Or if not that, to pay other bills and obligations. What business does this person have using this windfall (for want of a better word) for non-necessary expenditures? That his goal was to buy a condo pretty much tells me he never intended to pay the loan and was hoping it would be cancelled in total.
So yeah it was his fault. From the excerpt we are not talking about someone struggling to pay day to day expenses while doing their best to pay down the loan. We are talking about someone in a comfortable financial position who figures he is owed that money and to heck with paying it back.