Long Beach Special Needs Planning Lawyers Helping Clients to Protect the Future of a Loved One With Special Needs

What Are the Crucial Factors to Take Into Account While Making Future Plans for a Loved One with Special Needs?

Many families tend to emphasize matters like budgeting for medical bills and caregiving when making plans for the future of a relative or kid with special needs. It’s crucial to consider another factor: protecting your loved one’s ability to collect government assistance.

Families may discover that there is frequently a fine line between ensuring their loved one has a pleasant life and maintaining their eligibility for assistance like SSI (Supplemental Security Income). Because of this, many families use SNTs (Special Needs Trusts) as a means of achieving both objectives.

How Might a Special Needs Trust Help a Person with a Disability?

Anyone with a mental or physical disability might gain from special needs trust in many ways. First, it permits the recipient to use assets like money and real estate without those assets affecting their eligibility for SSI and other government benefits.

 Although SSI benefits are intended to cover necessities like food and housing, a disabled person may need more than necessities to live comfortably. Bills and requirements that don’t come under the “basic needs” category but are nevertheless crucial for your loved one might be paid for with the help of the assets in a special needs trust.

An SNT also allows direct financial activities, such as paying bills, without needing the recipient to move money to their bank account because the legal ownership of the SNT funds is held by a third party (which would be a taxable transaction). In addition to allowing the trust creator authority over who will receive the trust’s residual assets when the principal beneficiary passes away, an SNT also gives protection against creditors.

What Are the Most Popular SNT Types?

First-Party and Third-Party trusts are two of the most popular special needs trusts. Most special needs trusts are irreversible, which means they cannot be readily modified or canceled, and any assets used to support the trust will belong to it (and not by the person who transferred them into the trust).

Where the assets originate from is the main distinction between a First Party SNT and a Third-Party SNT. The assets of the disabled individual, who will also be the trust’s beneficiary, are used to fund a First-Party SNT. This might happen, for instance, when a disabled person wins a settlement from a personal injury lawsuit following their disability and puts the assets in the trust to keep receiving SSI payments.

A Third-Party SNT includes the disabled person as the beneficiary and is supported by assets from others, including parents, siblings, other family members, and even friends. Discuss which sort of SNT could be ideal for your family with your attorney since each might have benefits and drawbacks.

How Can a Lawyer Help Me?

Planning for the future of a loved one with special needs is not an easy undertaking, as one can see. There are many factors to consider, which can occasionally feel overwhelming. A barrister may assist you at every stage of the procedure, pointing you in the proper directions, posing the appropriate questions, and even avoiding expensive yet frequent blunders.

Our legal team at Barilari & Williams, LLC has helped several families in Long Beach and the surrounding communities with their special needs planning requirements. We are prepared to help you. Please call us at 888-EST-PLAN.