THINGS TO AVOID WHEN SELLING A STRUCTURED SETTLEMENT

Selling a structured settlement allows you to get your money out of it quickly. This means that, instead of several years of payments, you get your entire lump sum in one payment. There is also the option to get a portion of your payments, but not the full amount, which allows you to resume your payments when your obligation to the buyer is fulfilled. Here are some things you should avoid if you’re going this route, because it is a big decision and you want to make sure you’re making it wisely.

Don’t Go Overboard

Plenty of people want to sell a structured settlement, but they do not need to take the entire thing. Remember that this is always an option and, further, that it is a very good option if you don’t need the entire sum of your settlement in one payment.

An example of this—and a common one—would be getting money to pay for college. Instead of paying interest on student loans, some people with settlement money to which they are entitled choose to take a lump payment on whatever portion of it would cover their tuition. You can do this to reduce or eliminate your costs, particularly the costs associated with borrowing over the long term.

The structured settlement payment, if you have a large settlement, however, need not be the equivalent of the entire settlement. Consider taking a portion so that you still have income left after you’re out of college and so that you minimize your fees. It’s a good way to use this service.

This applies to most any scenario involving taking money out of a structured settlement. If you just need a bit to catch up with bills or to cover an inevitable cost, go ahead and take that sum instead of taking everything out.

Don’t Overthink the Long-term

This may sound counterintuitive when you’re thinking about money, but thinking in the long term can make it seem like taking some or all of your structured settlement as a lump payment is not a good idea when this isn’t the case.

When you’re slated to get payments over a series of years, decades or even your lifetime, remember that the fixed amount of the payments may not really keep up with inflation. This is one of the reasons that people sometimes choose to take their settlements and sell them if they can, because they don’t want to fall victim to inflation. Remember that money is wealth and, even though you may be entitled to a certain amount of money, it doesn’t mean that the money will remain the equivalent of the same amount of wealth it was worth when you were first awarded the settlement.

If you have doubts about whether selling your structured settlement makes sense in the long term, consider talking to a financial planner about the matter. They’re very good at determining whether these types of strategies make sense for their clients.

Don’t Take too Little

Remember that you may have to go to a hearing to get your sale approved, particularly if your settlement has language that prohibits selling it. If you go in front of a judge, it’s much better to make sure that you’re asking for enough to cover whatever need has manifested.

It’s better to ask for as much as you need rather than to have to go through the entire process again. Keep in mind that it can take 6 weeks or longer for the courts to process these requests, so you should make sure you take care of everything the first time you ask to sell your settlement.

Don’t Worry About Default

If the person who is paying your settlement defaults after you have been paid the lump sum, you’re not at risk. It’s important to keep this in mind and, in fact, it’s one of the real advantages of selling a structured settlement rather than waiting for it to pay off over a series of years. You are, to some degree, putting the risk on the buyer and taking your money in one lump, which means that you’re involvement with the settlement, is over, unless you haven’t taken then entire amount.

Remember It’s About You and Your Needs

There is a lot of advice that will recommend for and against taking your structured settlement and selling it. This is all well and good, but this advice is all based on hypothetical situations, of course, and the advice may not really apply to what’s going on with you.

Trust your instincts on this. If you feel that taking a part of the settlement and using it to pay off debts or to handle a crisis is sensible, then go ahead follow your instincts. If you feel like you need to wait awhile, remember that you don’t have to accept a quote and there’s no risk in simply seeing what would be involved in selling your settlement.

Know the Terms When Selling a Structured Settlement

When you get an offer, be sure you read it carefully. A financial decision that turns out well when you weren’t fully aware of what was involved is just a lucky decision, not a good one. Don’t rely on luck. Read all the terms and conditions and understand what you’ll walk away with if you take the lump sum.

If you’re interested in learning more, look around the site and you’ll find plenty of information available to peruse. There is also a lot of great information about selling structured settlements available online and in other venues, so be sure to consider everything that’s available thoroughly and make your decision from a position of knowing your goals, what strategies you intend to employ and how selling your structured settlement can play into all of that. You have options and selling off your structured settlement and freeing up the cash that may have taken years to receive in full might be one of the best ones of all.

Source : http://cashfuturepayments.com/blog/avoid-when-selling-a-structured-settlement/

IS IT THE RIGHT TIME TO SELL A STRUCTURED SETTLEMENT?

Selling your structured settlement might be a good idea, depending upon your circumstances. With any financial decision, there is always a right and wrong time and, sometimes, it’s hard to tell which may be the case. Here are some of the things you can think about when you’re trying to determine whether or not you want to sell your settlement.

Do You Need All the Cash?

The first question you should ask yourself is whether or not you need all the cash in your settlement. If not, you do have the option of selling part of your settlement and resuming your regular annuity installments after you’ve squared up with the buyers.

If you don’t need all the cash out of your structured settlement, this changes the equation a bit. You’re not giving up the security of regular payments, at least not for the long term, so the decision is a bit easier to make. Do you need the money you want right now or could it wait? Is there more benefit in paying whatever debts you want to pay off with that money or is there more benefit in keeping going with the annuity payments as they are?

Only you can answer these questions. There are some reasons that people commonly choose to sell their structured settlements detailed in the section that follows and these apply to the decision making process detailed in this section, as well. You should consider them when you’re deciding to sell off part of your annuity payments.

You Need All the Money

If you do need all the money, there’s probably a good reason for it. You may have realized that you could actually save some money by taking cash out of your settlement payments and applying them to existing needs right away. Some of the reasons that people do this include:

High interest credit card debtLong-term debt—student loans, etc.Rescuing a mortgagePaying for a carPaying for school in advance

There are many other reasons that people opt to do this. They may decide that, upon looking at the issues, there is good reason to go ahead and sacrifice the bit of money they’ll loose on fees for selling their settlement. For instance, if you have over $10,000 in credit card debt, the amount you’ll save by paying it off in one shot versus the amount you might lose by selling your settlement could demonstrate that getting rid of the credit card debt is the best possible move.

There are plenty of other reasons that people sell their settlements. Sometimes, it’s because of medical expenses. These costs—particularly if you don’t have insurance—can bankrupt people and having the money there to pay it off right away can end up saving you financially. This is a decision, however, that you have to make carefully, even if you’re making it under stressful circumstances.

What About the Lost Payments?

Getting regular payments from a settlement can be very comforting. If you lose your job, you still have the payments. If you have unexpected expenses, you can pay for part of them with your payments. There is a lot to be said for getting this money and, no matter how difficult the ordeal was that ended up with you getting a settlement, these payments can be great sources of peace of mind. When you sell your settlement, you will, at least for a time, lose this security. This isn’t a total loss, however, and it may actually be a net plus.

The fact that structured settlement payments come in on a regular basis makes people feel secure. The payments, however, may be legally enforced but they are not guaranteed. There’s always a chance that the person who is responsible for paying them will fail to do so for whatever reason and that those payments will stop altogether.

One of the advantages—the marked advantages, really—of selling off a structured settlement is that the buyer assumes the risk as far as the payments no longer coming through is concerned. Once you sell the settlement, you have your cash and you’re out of depending upon those payments for good, unless you sell off only part of your settlement.

Is Now the Time to Sell a Structured Settlement?

This is always a debate. Whether or not it’s a good idea to sell your settlement is partially dependent upon the timing of the issue. If you’re in college, depending upon the payments to see you through as far as rent and groceries go and you don’t really trust yourself with a huge sum of cash, you very well might want to wait. Then again, if you want to make sure you don’t pay a dime of interest on any loans related to college and you want to have the entire matter settled financially so that you can concentrate on studying, you might want to sell the structured settlement right away.

Likewise, if you feel that you can handle your bills due to a medical incident and you want to keep those payments rolling in on a regular basis, you may want to keep the settlement as it is. If you feel that it would be beneficial to have the money all at once and to get rid of all your bills, you may want to go the route of selling it off.

Be responsible to yourself in this regard. Think about what the best course of action is and do the math to back up your decision. If you see a real advantage in selling off your structured settlement, you may want to get the process started so that you can get the money as quickly as possible. Remember that you can do this at any time, so if the issue really comes down to one of timing more than one of whether or not you should or should not sell at all, waiting for the best possible time to sell off your settlement rather than doing it on impulse may be advantageous.

Source : http://cashfuturepayments.com/blog/is-it-the-right-time-to-sell-your-structured-settlement/

HOW SELLING STRUCTURED SETTLEMENTS WORKS

Selling a structured settlement is not a small decision and it should not be addressed as such. Most structured settlements are received as the result of lawsuits. For example, somebody who slams into your car, causes you personal injury and who was found to have been negligent in doing so by a jury may be required to pay you a large amount of money due to a settlement reached between your attorney and there’s or due to the findings of the jury in the case. In order to ensure that the person can actually pay the money that they owe you, they may be allowed to do so over time.

This results in the person with the structured settlement receiving a specific amount of money at specific intervals. You may, for example, receive $10,000 a year for 20 years or, if your settlement is much smaller than that, $200 a month for two years. There are really infinite degrees of variability involved here.

In some cases, people who have these types of settlements may want to get the money right away. This is where selling a structured settlement comes into play. Essentially, companies that purchased the settlements place bids on your settlement and, by selecting the best bid, you can sell off a certain number of payments on your settlement and receive a lump sum of cash in exchange. Here are some things to consider.

Your Taxes

In the vast majority of cases – but you will have to verify this in your specific case – you won’t have to pay any taxes on the lump sum you receive in lieu of your structured settlements if you don’t pay taxes on those structured settlement checks already.

With anything regarding taxes, you will have to talk to an accountant or an attorney about whether or not you will need to pay more money in taxes for receiving a lump. In the vast majority of cases, however, your tax obligations should remain the same. The IRS gives detailed information on excise taxes and structured settlement factoring, available here.

Legal Issues

There may be some requirements that you have to meet to sell off part or all of your structured settlements, but most states will allow you to do this. This will apply whether you are selling off payments from an insurance policy or payments from a lawsuit.

Some people have structured settlement agreements that specifically state that they cannot sell them off. It is, counter intuitively enough, possible to sell these off. Generally, you can have a judge look at your case and, if they believe that you do have a valid reason to go ahead and select your structured settlement payments, they can approve the sale and, therefore, can override any of this language.

Some states may require you to go through a cooling off period before you actually do sell off the payments. Once you have completed this, you can go ahead and sell. The idea behind this cooling off payment is to give you an opportunity to make certain that you are making a good decision. By all means, you should use this.

Be aware that it could take up to 30 days – perhaps even longer – to have the courts approve your sale. Keep this in mind if you’re debating whether to go ahead and do it. If you’re sure that you’re going to have to sell off your structured payments for one reason or another and you want to make certain that it happens as quickly as possible, you will want to start moving right away. If everything goes smoothly, you could receive your payment in as little as six weeks.

Can I Just Get a Quote?

Yes. If you want a company to give you a quote on what they’ll pay you for your structured settlement, you can do so without actually having to sell your structured payment to them. You do not enter into any legally binding agreement unless you choose to do so.

Most of the time, the companies that will be willing to buy your structured settlement will do so with a 48 hour window for you to accept their terms. By having several different companies offer you bids, you can go through, decide which one is offering you the best price for your structured settlement payments and make your decision accordingly.

Why People Do It

Selling structured settlements is generally done for the most obvious reason imaginable: people want a lump sum of money instead of a payment at certain intervals. By selling off some of their payments – or all of them – they get a large lump sum payment, which oftentimes enables them to take care of pressing matters that they could not attend to otherwise.

As just one example, if you were injured in a car accident in high school and received a settlement due to a lawsuit, you may very well decide to sell your structured settlement so that you can get a lump sum of money when you want to go to college. If you were already out in the working world and you needed a new vehicle, you may do this so that you could put cash on a vehicle, thereby likely reducing the price by not having to go through any payment and by being able to pay cash up front.

Selling off structured settlements is a good way to make certain that you are not left in a financially undesirable situation when you don’t have to be. If you have the money coming already but you need it faster, you can always sell off some of your payments. If you want to dispense with waiting around for a certain amount of money to roll in every month, you can go ahead and sell the entire thing by looking for a broker who will be willing to buy it from you.

No matter how you choose to address it, many people find that handling the structured settlements in this way is far more convenient than waiting for monthly payments.

Source : http://cashfuturepayments.com/blog/selling-small-structured-settlements/

SELLING SMALL STRUCTURED SETTLEMENTS

Not everyone who has a structured settlement necessarily has a very large one. In fact, some people may have a structured settlement that is under $10,000 that they want to sell off. Some people have settlements that are above $10,000, but not by much, and may want to sell them off. Here are some of the reasons that you may want to consider doing so.

The Payments Don’t Amount to Much

With smaller settlements, you may get payments that really don’t count for much in your monthly budget. In fact, the payments may be small enough that you can’t use them for much during the course of any given month. This slow trickle of cash inflow might actually be more frustrating than it’s worth and it may be more convenient to just get rid of it.

If a small structured settlement is being paid off in very small increments, it may be because the person who is responsible for paying it had very little financial wherewithal and was allowed to pay it off very slowly. That person may, at some point, not make those payments at all, for various reasons. By selling off the settlement, you can eliminate this risk. You’ll just get a lump sum of cash and you no longer have to worry about the checks rolling in.

Small Settlements Can Sometimes Make a Big Difference

If your settlement was small, it may be because whatever accident or injury entitled you to it was not that severe. This may well mean that you have medical bills and other expenses that are too high to pay off all at once but not so high that they cost that much on a monthly basis.

Yet, every month, there you are, signing checks or paying online for a bill that you could just get rid of and be done with in one shot, if you had the money. This is one of the most common reasons that people choose to sell off their small structured settlements.

Consider the Time

If your structured settlement is essentially going directly to bills related to whatever court case or out of court settlement got you the settlement, you’re probably investing a lot of time in managing the debt. If you waited out the full term of the structured settlement, you may find that you got a bit more money than you would by selling it, but it might not be that much, given that the amount is so low already. It might just be easier to sell it off and here’s why.

With the lump sum of cash, all of the time and energy you’re spending managing that debt can go away. It might cost you a bit to sell off the settlement, but that money is easily recouped by freeing up the time you’re probably spending dealing with paying for medical expenses and so forth. The convenience factor here is definitely worth mentioning, as it’s a prime motivator in why people sell off their settlements.

Will the Buyers Be Interested?

With smaller settlements, you—and the agency that buys the settlement—will be doing more work for less money. There’s really no way around this, given that the settlement amount is smaller. This is something that you’ll have to figure out by contacting us to see if your settlement is one that we would be interested in buying.

If the settlement is sufficient and if there is a mutual benefit in selling it off, it can be sold in the same way that any other settlement can be sold off. You’ll have to go through the process that applies in your state, including a court hearing, if necessary. Once that is all taken care of, you’ll be ready to go.

Weighing the Options

Is waiting for the small settlement to pay off in full over the course of months or year’s worth it? That’s really up to you. If the money you get every month seems so little that you’re basically using it for spending money and, thereby, wasting it, there is something to consider.

It’s a lot easier to spend $5,000 in $100 chunks than it is to spend it in $2,500 chunks. This is just the way human brains work. If you’re worried that you’re just wasting the smaller checks you get every month from your settlement, getting it all at once and putting it into an investment or savings account might be a very good idea. It can prevent you from spending your entire settlement nickel by nickel without even realizing what you’re doing.

With smaller settlements, the sums are sometimes excellent amounts to have around in case of an emergency. For instance, if you sell off your $10,000 settlement and you get into a car wreck, you’ll be glad that you have it in your savings so that you can replace or repair your car quickly and handle most of the other emergency expenses that come up. If you were waiting on small payments, they really wouldn’t be that helpful, in most cases.

I Heard I Should Wait

There is so much financial advice on the Internet that it’s easy to get confused about any given issue, selling settlements included. You’ll find strong opinions advocating for and against selling off your structured settlement. Should you or shouldn’t you? It’s not an insignificant question.

The answer, however, is something that you should determine for yourself. When you’re reading financial advice, remember that it’s a bit like medical advice. You can give it generally, but it’s not always useful in that form. If your financial situation means that waiting around for $10,000 or so to pay off over a long period of time is really not worth it, you may want to sell. If you want to wait for it to pay, go ahead and do so. Whatever you do, make sure that you’re making the best possible decision for you and for your financial future. There is a great deal of information and advice out there, but your situation is unique and only you know what’s best for your financial future.

Source : http://cashfuturepayments.com/blog/selling-small-structured-settlements/

WHY YOU MAY WANT TO SELL STRUCTURED SETTLEMENTS

People sometimes sell structured settlements to which they are entitled.

There are many different reasons that they do this and, in many cases, they have to prove that they have a serious need for that money before a judge will approve selling the structured settlements. This is not always the case, but it is sometimes.

Without getting into the legal specifics of selling your structured settlement, here are some of the reasons that people choose to make this move.

Most of them are not hard to understand and likely relate to things that everybody has gone through at one time or another.

Accidents and Injuries

Some people get structured settlements because of an accident or an injury they were involved in that occurred because of someone else’s negligence.

There are times, however, when that same person may become injured or very ill once again and when they need to sell the settlement.

According to Bankrate, there are in excess of 35 million annuity contracts in place right now, and that was as of the end of 2007. 

Many people who receive income in this way, but sometimes it’s not fast enough.

People who end up suffering an illness, and injury or some other issue that causes them to lose work or have to pay a great deal of money out-of-pocket sometimes choose to sell their structured settlement to make life a bit easier.

This is one of the most common reasons that people do this.

Bad Economy

Sometimes, people who work very hard, play by the rules and do everything they’re supposed to do still find themselves in very bad financial straits. This has particularly been the case during the Great Recession, when many people found themselves out of work and unable to make ends meet.

People who are at risk of losing their homes, who are in a great deal of other debt and we need a way out sometimes choose to sell their structured settlements so that they can, essentially, get a fresh start. For people who happen to have a very large structured settlement, all they need to do, in some cases, is sell some of their structured settlement off so that they get enough money to pay off the debts that they have now and then they can return to receiving the structured settlement payments when the funder has been paid off.

Good Reasons

Sometimes, the reasons that people choose to sell off some of their structured payments is actually a very positive one. For instance, they may want to go to college or a tech school to get training so that they can work in a new field. They may also need to do work on their property to bring up the value before sale. There are many different reasons why people might choose to do this.

No matter what your reason might be, you should give it serious consideration before you do decide to sell off your structured settlement or, if you don’t plan to sell off the entire thing, some of it.

What It Offers

The main benefit to selling off a structured settlement is that you get your money right away. This is what people really want when they do this. No matter what reason is behind it, they have some compelling reason to need a lump sum of cash right away and, because they already do have the structured settlement coming, there are financial options available that allow them to do this.

When people sell their structured settlement, they do have to take into account how they’re going to handle it with taxes – if it does require some sort of a different strategy – and they need to determine exactly what they intend to do in the time that they will be receiving payments, if they will go back to receiving payments at some time in the future. For people who are employed, this usually isn’t a problem at all. They simply live on the money that they make it work until their structured settlement payments resume.

For people who depend entirely upon their structured settlements, the logistics may be a little bit different. Talking to an attorney, a financial planner or, conversely, someone who understands money quite well may help you to understand whether this is really the best move for you to make. For some people, it absolutely is the best move to make. Because the money is yours already, all the structured settlement is doing is making you wait to get it at intervals. A company such as Cash Future Payments can come in, give you the money that you are entitled to and then assume the payments from the structured settlement until the amount borrowed and their fees are covered.

Getting Started

It could take over 30 days for you to get your payment if your application is approved. This isn’t because of the logistics of getting the payment, it’s because the legal system involved and the fact that a judge will likely have to have a hearing where they will look at your situation and determine whether you have a compelling reason to sell your settlement payments. There’ll also be a cooling off period where you have the option to change your mind about selling your structured settlement payments.

The thing to remember is that you remain in control during this entire process. One of the reasons you may want to consider this is that, between the nature of the transaction and the fact that you get your money in a lump sum, you are afforded a great deal of control over what happens with your money. If you have any other questions about why you may want to do this, feel free to contact us at any time and we will be glad to talk to you about your options and give you as much information as possible about what you need to do to get started.

Source: http://cashfuturepayments.com/blog/why-you-may-want-to-sell-structured-settlements/