Litigation

Did you know that each structured settlement factoring transaction requires Court approval or the factoring company is subject to a 40% excise tax on the factoring discount. An attorney is needed to make the application for court approval. Even though you may hear from the "cash now pusher" that it is picking up the legal fees the cost is absorbed in the pricing.

I was inspired to write this post after a conversation with an annuity issuer representative with knowledge of the factoring requests at his/her company, who remarked on the serial requests from some annuitants. Who is encouraging structured settlmeent annuitants to treat their structured settlement like a bank account with ATM withdrawal privileges? The factoring company preying on the unsophisticated tort victim of course and some of the advertising and blogs associated with the factoring industry. In December 2007 one such factoring company sent notes to annuitants telling them if they needed money to buy holiday gifts they could sell their structured settlement payments.

A structured settlement annuity is NOT a bank account.

With legal fees running in the thousands of dollars, would you go to a bank if you knew the ATM fees were $1,000, $2,000 or $3,000?