[Code of Federal Regulations]
[Title 20, Volume 2]
[Revised as of April 1, 2004]
From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access
[CITE: 20CFR402.180]

[Page 38-39]
 
                      TITLE 20--EMPLOYEES' BENEFITS
 
               CHAPTER III--SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION
 
PART 402_AVAILABILITY OF INFORMATION AND RECORDS TO THE PUBLIC--Table 
of Contents
 
Sec. 402.180  Procedure on assessing and collecting fees for providing 
records.

    (a) We will generally assume that when you send us a request, you 
agree to pay for the services needed to locate and send that record to 
you. You may specify in your request a limit on the amount you are 
willing to spend. If you do that or include with your request a payment 
that does not cover our fee, we will notify you if it appears that the 
fee will exceed that amount and ask whether you want us to continue to 
process your request. Also, before we start work on your request under 
Sec. 402.140, we will generally notify you of our exact or estimated 
charge for the information, unless it is clear that you have a 
reasonable idea of the cost.
    (b) If you have failed to pay previous bills in a timely fashion, or 
if our initial review of your request indicates that we will charge you 
fees exceeding $250, we will require you to pay your past due fees and/
or the estimated fees, or a deposit, before we start searching for the 
records you want. If so, we will let you know promptly upon receiving

[[Page 39]]

your request. In such cases, administrative time limits (i.e., ten 
working days from receipt of initial requests and 20 working days from 
receipt of appeals from initial denials, plus permissible extensions of 
these time limits) will begin only after we come to an agreement with 
you over payment of fees, or decide that fee waiver or reduction is 
appropriate.
    (c) We will normally require you to pay all fees before we furnish 
the records to you. We may, at our discretion, send you a bill along 
with or following the furnishing of the records. For example, we may do 
this if you have a history of prompt payment. We may also, at our 
discretion, aggregate the charges for certain time periods in order to 
avoid sending numerous small bills to frequent requesters, or to 
businesses or agents representing requesters. For example, we might send 
a bill to such a requester once a month. Fees should be paid in 
accordance with the instructions furnished by the person who responds to 
your requests.
    (d) Payment of fees will be made by check or money order payable to 
``Social Security Administration''.

[62 FR 4154, Jan. 29, 1997, as amended at 68 FR 60295, Oct. 22, 2003]