So, you’ve found yourself in a position where due to the cost of a medical procedure, the need to take care of credit card debt, a possible mortgage foreclosure, or any of a dozen other reasons; where you have finally decided to look into selling your structured settlement payments. As you are browsing through your documents regarding your structured settlement while you begin to prepare for the sale you stumble on to some disturbing language in your settlement- an example of the language that may be contained inside your annuity policy or settlement agreement would be something like this-
“none of the periodic payments may be accelerated, deferred, increased or decreased and may not be anticipated, sold, assigned or encumbered.”
What does that mean, anyway? First of all, that would be called “anti-assignment or anti-sale language”, and secondly it is often put in there to let you know the annuity payments cannot be sold or transferred. But, wait. It’s your money. What happens if the Settlement Agreement has anti-sale or anti-assignment language? Does that mean you can sell your money? That you can’t sell your structured settlement payments? It sure sounds like it, but no- you can still sell, it’s just become a little more difficult.
What Happens If Your Annuity Policy Includes Anti-Assignment Language?
Many annuity policies and settlement agreements usually include anti-assignment or anti-sale language. Even though this language is included within your settlement documents, you are still able to sell your future structured settlement payments!
Selling the rights to your structured settlement payments requires you to receive a court order in which a judge will review and approve the sale of the annuity payments.
Most states have a Structured Settlement Protection Act which states that a judge must approve the transfer of such payments. Since you’ll be required to go via the court system anyway to make your sale, you can explain to the judge about your situation in regards to the language of your settlement. Remember, a judge has the power to approve the sale even if anti-assignment language exists in the Settlement Agreement or Annuity Policy since his ruling will supersede any and all agreements made on the terms of your structured settlement payments. It is important to remember that a judge will only approve the sale of your payment rights if the transaction is in your best interest.
If you need help selling your structured settlement, annuity or lottery payments,
contact us today. We are here to answer your questions and help you obtain the
highest possible price for your payments.
Tags: cash for structured settlement, law, legal, sell payments, sell settlement, sell structured settlement, selling payments
