Protect Your Loved One’s Financial Future With A Special Needs Trust
If your family is caring for a child with disabilities, you may not be aware of options that would allow you to use funds from your child’s inheritance or personal injury settlement/award to help your family provide care and enhance the quality of life for your child now, while maintaining his or her eligibility for Medicaid at a later date.
How A Convertible Special Needs Trust Can Help
At our southern New Jersey firm, Rice & Quattrone, PC, we offer a special needs trust especially designed for families caring for children with disabilities. Our “convertible special needs trust” avoids the problem created by the typical d4A Supplemental Needs Trust commonly used to shelter a disabled person’s funds:
If a child’s funds are placed in a d4A trust while the parents are still able to provide care in their home and under their health insurance plan, the caregiving parents are not able to use the money to enrich the child’s life or relieve the family’s stress. At the time of the disabled person’s death, any remaining funds are used to repay Medicaid benefits.
The convertible special needs trust designed by our attorneys allows the parents or other caregivers to freely access the funds on behalf of the disabled child. Then, when the child becomes eligible for Medicaid due to their need for skilled nursing care or by turning 18, the remaining funds are smoothly transferred to a special needs trust that allows the owner lifetime access.
Sheltering Funds Through Trusts And Estate Plans
If you or your child has suffered serious, disabling injuries, it is important to prepare for any award or settlement before the money is received. If a person who is legally incapacitated receives an inheritance or personal injury award larger than $5,000 and there is no trust prepared to receive the funds, they are automatically deposited with the county surrogate. It is very difficult for the family to then use the funds on behalf of the child. We are happy to work with personal injury attorneys in this area.
As the caregiver for someone with special needs, in addition to special needs financial planning, planning to minimize taxation and a special needs trust, you also need to plan for the time when the child becomes a legal adult or an adult becomes legally incompetent by preparing a durable power of attorney or guardianship. If you or someone you care about is facing probate or estate planning issues, an elder law attorney at our firm will take the time to get to know you before crafting a plan to meet your unique needs.
Confused About Your Options? Get Clarity Here.
Contact us to learn more about the legal tools that you can use to protect your loved ones in the years ahead. You can arrange your private consultation with an experienced lawyer at our firm when you complete our online form or call us in Cherry Hill at 856-673-0048 or Linwood at 609-398-3447.
Our legal team at Rice & Quattrone, PC, is proud to serve clients throughout New Jersey and the greater Philadelphia area. Contact us today.