Incapacity and special needs
Special needs trusts
A gift that is meant kindly can end the benefits someone lives on. A trust is how you avoid that.
Public benefits such as SSI and Medi-Cal are means tested. An inheritance received outright can disqualify a beneficiary until it has been spent down, which is rarely what anyone intended.
A special needs trust holds the gift and supplements what benefits provide rather than replacing it, so that both survive.
What this involves
- Third party special needs trusts
- First party and pooled trusts
- What a trustee may and may not pay for
- Coordinating with a family's wider plan
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Also in incapacity and special needs
Who does this work
