If you want to get your structured settlement sale through court you might want to avoid this structured settlement purchaser
Your structured settlement, originally, should have been designed to meet your needs, throughout the life of the settlement. But this isn’t always the case. Now, you need a structured settlement purchaser to help you get cash fast. Or, maybe the structure wasn’t even right for you in the first place; this is another case when it might be time to sell structured settlement payments.
Patrick Hindert, previous president of National Structured Settlement Trade Association (NSSTA), previous director of Society of Settlement Planners (SSP), and author of a blog on structured settlements seems to support the sale of structured settlements when, in an interview, he said that, “The first pitfall occurs if individuals “over-structure” when they settle their personal injury claims. An appropriate settlement plan should include an analysis that justifies periodic payments and anticipates changing circumstances and liquidity needs.” But you must use caution when you sell a structured settlement. You must choose the right structured settlement purchaser and you must always get court approval.
Getting Approval to Sell
In every state you must have approval to sell your settlement payments, no matter how good your reason is or what your current situation. Often, when you have a good reason, your request will be approved.
Sometimes the Request to Sell is Denied
There are times, though, when the judge will deny your sale. It is difficult to say exactly why judges deny sales, though we touch on some of these reasons throughout the guide. The truth is, a thorough search of the internet, discussions with companies, and reviews of court cases still shows that there are many different reasons for denial, and each depends on the unique situation. However, our research showed that the most common reason for denial of a sale was when the judge felt that the cost of the sale was too high.
For example, in 2012 a woman tried to sell her payments to J.G. Wentworth. The judge turned her down. She was trying to sell payments totally $130,000 and had been offered just $15,000 for those payments. The judge said that this was far too much of a loss and denied.
A similar case found Alison Grieve denied selling her payments. This was because the payments, totaling $104,800 were going to be purchased for a mere $39,862. The court felt this was an unethical discount rate and denied. The company she was trying to sell to was Singer Asset Financial.
The list of denied court cases like this goes on. Many of these cases involve J.G. Wentworth, but this makes sense as they are also a structured settlement purchaser who attempts to buy the most settlements. No legitimate, reliable documentation exists to say exactly what company gets denied the most. But J.G. does seem to be denied… a lot.
Follow your instincts!
Often our stomach or heart know more about what is right than our brains do. If you feel “good” about selling your settlement, and you feel “good” about the company that you have chosen, then go with it and hopefully things will turn out well. However, if you feel uncomfortable at any point, worried that selling is not the right decision, or bothered by the behavior of the company that you are selling to, then stop the process. You can always stop, keep your payments, and think about selling again in the future when it feels like the right thing to do.
What You Can Learn
What you can learn from this is that just because a company makes you an offer and tries to get it approved doesn’t mean that it is a good offer. If someone is offering you just a fraction of the value to sell a structured settlement get another quote by calling Strategic Capital.