Settlement Capital General Counsel Matt Bracy puts his heart and soul into his latest post about annutants needing money and the occasional indignities occasionally suffered by those who go down the route of sellng their structured settlement payment rights.
Bracy states that the vast majority of transfer cases are handled respectfully and accord proper dignity to all parties.
But he uses an impact example of the indignity of a seller who was "trying to sell payments in order to get his electricity or gas turned back on at home, and the judge denied the sale. “I was cold last night in my house judge, were you?” said the seller on his way out of the courtroom".
Court approval of structured settlement payment transfers is a requirement of IRC 5891, in order to avoid an onerous excise tax, as well as applicable state structured settlement protection statutes.
Bracy concludes with this respectful and valid statement
"Not all factoring transactions should be approved. Not all sellers are upstanding members of society, capable of handing finances, etc. Not all structured settlement factoring companies are good corporate citizens doing the right thing. But, I encourage judges, court staff, politicians and those who ponder these matters to consider these transfers individually, with respect for the individual seller. They need that, and deserve no less".
Comments
A. I submit to you and to Matt that the root of the indignities is image "baggage" resulting from the obnoxious saturation advertising from settlement purchasers that has been prevalent since 2004 as well as blog spam created to take advantage of the high Google Adsense return of the key word "structured settlements". At one point the key word value per click was worth in excess of $50! Some of the gibberish out there is just "flotsam and jetsam" and paints a very poor image of factoring companies.
B. The image of an "unregulated industry" or "under-regulated industry" is probably not a positive one when it comes to those charged with protecting people's money.
C. Some of those who need money suffer the indignity of having a judge actually approve the 18%-20% discount rate charged by some settlement purchasers.
Comments