Structured Settlement Basics - Selling Structured Settlement Payments

Owning a structured settlement annuity (SSA) provides you a lot of benefits. The major advantage you get in this is that you and your dependents are protected financially long term by the structured settlement payments Also important is the fact that these payments and interest earned from them are not taxable so you receive the full amount of the settlement over the term of the settlement. You also can sell your structured settlement (SS) payment in case of emergency or for better alternate investments.

As per federal law HR 2884, it is possible for you to make a sale of your payments without paying any taxes. Apart from federal laws, the laws in the majority of states in USA permits for the sale of structured settlement payments. However, these laws make it mandatory for individuals to seek court approval when they sell their payments in order to stay tax free.

You can get the court approval easily for selling either full or part of your SS payments and this necessitates convincing the judge about your genuine need for the funds. The judge will assess the reasons given by you to enter into such a transaction and give his approval or otherwise after ensuring that the transaction is beneficial to you and your family.

If you are an adult with sound mind, and if you can prove that the sale of structured settlement payments is for the benefit of you and your dependents, the judge will have hardly any reason to reject your request for court approval for this sale. Personal appearance during trial will help a lot in getting a positive verdict in your our case. Sale of SS payments is possible without court approval but you will lose the tax benefit when you sell them.

It is possible that, in most of the cases, the purchasing company you are working with might be interested in purchasing your payments. In order to complete the deal they may have to do some legal work. They normally will do this free of cost; you are liable to pay taxes on the payments received if you can't get the court approval.

First and foremost thing you should do is to call for quotations. It is in your benefit to get quotations from a number of companies. Once you select the purchasing company whose quote you like, you should send this company copies of the structured settlement policy. On the other hand, you will receive from the purchasing company a disclosure document for you to sign. This document details various clauses and conditions on which the sale is being made. You must sign and return the document.

The process for court approval will begin after this. The time taken for start to finish of this process is around 90 days and this depends on the state of residence of you and your insurance company. In most of the cases, the money is disbursed from the sale of the structure settlement payments within a period of 10 days.

Chang Sun Seward operates a structured settlement website which provides articles to teach you how to get the most out of your structured settlement, whether you're signing a contract or selling your payments. Want to get cash now for your structured settlement payments? Make sure you understand the risks involved in selling your payments and check the background of the company buying your payments before you sign them over.



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