Pro-active planning, in advance if possible, can help protect what you’ve worked so hard for so you can leave it all to your family instead.
Pro-active planning for long-term nursing care can be done in one of two ways: 1) purchasing long-term care insurance or 2) by making sure your assets are structured so you are fully eligible to receive the benefits you’re entitled to under the government’s Medicaid programs.
Most people start the process of estate planning to deal with “What If”. What If you died and your children were still too young to care for themselves? What If you were no longer physically able to care for yourself? What If you had very specific instructions for how your …
You’ve been a responsible planner for your family’s future, especially your child with special needs.
You’ve met with an attorney, set up a Supplemental or Special Needs Trust and you can breathe a sigh of relief. Your work is done, right?
Wrong.
Funding and forgetting about a Trust can be as detrimental as not forming one at all. And having one that isn’t properly written can render it completely useless.
Supplemental Needs Trusts (sometimes called Special Needs Trusts) allow people with mental or physical disabilities, or even people with chronic or acquired illnesses, to have unlimited assets held in Trust for their benefit. If you have a child, grandchild, or even a spouse with a disability, a Supplemental Needs Trust can ensure that they have the funds they need to maintain their lifestyle after you’re gone.
Naming your kids as co-trustees means that they must act together. If down the road they can’t agree or cooperate in making decisions then there is a deadlock. Absent some way of resolving a deadlock in the trust agreement, eventually this trust will end up in a court dispute between the two co-trustees. Examples of a dispute are where one child want to sell real estate and the other doesn’t. This often occurs where one of the children is still residing in the property.
