When handling special needs planning for your child, you will be forced to make many difficult decisions about your child’s future. You need to make sure that all aspects of your child’s care are taken into consideration.  This will allow him or her to live a better life.  With the use of a letter of intent, you can leave extra care instruction, so that all of his or her needs are met.  Take a look at the information below, to learn more.

Consider including the following in your letter of intent

With the use of a letter of intent, you can provide as much as instruction as you’d like.  This gives you full control, so that you’re able to provide the tools and information needed so that your child can have a great future.  Consider including the following in your letter of intent.

• A list of family members and friends who know your child well, as well as emergency contact information
• Information related to your child’s medical needs, including medication needs, and medical professional contact information
• Information on your child’s specific needs, including everyday activities and daily routines
• Your child’s interests, personality traits, dislikes, and other information that relates to his or her preferences
• Your values, beliefs, and wishes for your child, as well as information on how you wish he or she should be raised
• Your child’s future goals and wishes for education and employment

With a letter of intent, you can best ensure that all of your child’s needs are met.  You can also help your child’s guardian provide the best care possible.  If you have yet to create a letter of intent, speak with your estate planning attorney about this planning tool.

Duffy Law Office is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

When it comes to getting appointed as guardian of a loved one, just how disabled does the person need to be before the court will decide that they need a guardian?

The rules concerning guardianship of an adult are stringent due to the fact that when a guardianship is appointed, it takes away many of the rights that someone has. Once there is a guardian they can control where a person lives, what they do, when they receive medical treatment, etc. Due to the seriousness of appointing a guardian over an adult citizen, the court must find that the person is mentally incapacitated.

The general guideline to determine if someone is mentally incapacitated they must be severely limited in their ability to process information and to communicate. This disability must bad enough that the person can no longer attend to what is required to ensure their safety and physical well being. This means that the person cannot perform the tasks that would be necessary to ensure that they got health care, food, shelter, clothing, personal grooming, etc.

The impairment usually has to be due to the person’s ability to think or communicate. What this means is that even if you are completely paralyzed, as long as you can think clear enough to make decisions and have a means of communicating those decisions, the court will not appoint a guardian.

Although the rules regarding a guardianship appointment are strict, it is essential to understand that the reason for guardianship in the first place to protect someone who is vulnerable. If a judge sees that someone is at risk for some type of injury, they may appoint a guardian, even if the person’s condition does not meet the exact rules according to the law books.

To best understand how guardianship works and if it may be a necessary step to protect a loved one, you will want to contact an attorney that specializes in elder law for advice. An attorney can advise you on what steps to take to gain guardianship over your loved one, or if it is even something that you should do at all.

Duffy Law Office is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

If you’re a parent who has taken the time and energy to create an estate plan, you should be commended for your initiative and perseverance for ensuring your children and grandchildren are properly cared for when you are gone. If you have not yet created an estate plan, doing so could be one of the most important actions you can take on behalf of your children’s future well being. A properly drafted estate plan designates who will care for your minor children upon your death, as well as providing for the smooth transfer of wealth to your children. Many parents assume that making sure a child is financially secure after they are gone means leaving the assets outright to the children. For many reasons, such as a child’s inability to manage finances, outright distribution of your assets to your children may not be the most prudent option. This becomes especially true if any of the beneficiaries of your trust estate have, or develop in the future, special needs and require the assistance of government aid.

There are generally two types of government assistance: Employment-based assistance and need -based assistance. Employment-based assistance is those benefits available to an applicant based upon the work history of the applicant or a close relative. Within this category you would find Social Security and Medicare. In contrast, need-based assistance is offered, generally, to lower-income applicants only. Need-based assistance, such as Supplemental Security Income, or “SSI”, and Medicaid, has stringent income and resource requirements for receiving financial assistance. Leaving assets outright to a special needs child could render them ineligible to receive otherwise valuable government assistance until those assets are exhausted. But what is a parent to do to avoid this result?

One option is to disinherit the special needs child completely, thereby allowing the child to receive aid from the government they would otherwise not be able to receive with an inheritance. Although the parents could instruct their other children to care for the special needs child, there is no guarantee that this will be done. Additionally, there is no assurance that the government program will continue in existence or will provide the expected level of assistance. Finally, and possibly most significantly, the psychological effects of disinheriting the child could be devastating to the child and the parents during their lifetimes. Therefore, for most parents this option is not an option at all.

A second and more viable option for fulfilling a parent’s desire to care for a special needs child without interfering with his or her ability to receive government assistance is through the use of a properly drafted trust. Special provisions can be included in your trust limiting the child’s access to the trust assets and, hence, the inheritance’s effects upon assistance eligibility.

As any mandatory distributions from a trust will be taken into consideration in determining a child’s eligibility for government assistance, the Trustee of your trust should instead be given full discretion to distribute income and/or principal for the benefit of a special needs beneficiary. In this manner, only those assets actually distributed are counted towards qualification. If the trustee does decide to distribute trust assets for the benefit of a special needs child, it is important that the trust document limit such distributions to only supplemental purposes. Distributions for the support of the child, such as for food, clothing, shelter or routine medical care, will be considered when determining the child’s eligibility for aid. Therefore, distributions for the beneficiary’s support should be prohibited. It is important to state clearly your intention that distributions supplement, but not diminish, any form of government or private support that a beneficiary is then receiving or becomes eligible to receive. Although this may seem to limit distributions drastically, your child still may receive trust assets for his or her comfort and general welfare.

Benefit planning is a highly specialized area of the law. The rules and requirements vary from state to state and failing to be aware of your state’s law can severely hinder your child’s chances of receiving government assistance. Some states have introduced legislation allowing trust assets to be accessed where certain needs of a beneficiary are not being met, unless the trust clearly states that the statute is inapplicable. Therefore, it is imperative that you consult with a qualified estate planning attorney to discuss your particular needs and to incorporate any unique provisions into your trust required by your state. Failing to include special needs provisions in your estate plan, or failing to have them drafted by a knowledgeable estate planning attorney specializing in benefits planning, could result in the loss of valuable government assistance for your special needs beneficiary.

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Duffy Law Office is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

The special needs trust is something that a lot of people are unfamiliar with, including some people that have special needs children. If you have a loved one that is disabled, you will want to find out as much as you can about special needs trusts.

A special needs trust is a legal entity that is created for the specific purpose of holding in trust, assets and money for someone that is disabled. The person creating the trust will name a trustee who will take care of handling the assets and money in the trust and distributing them according to the requirements of the trust. Most special needs trust are created in a way that the distribution of money and assets are restricted so that the person with special needs is not disqualified from receiving government assistance.

There are two different types of special needs trust, the self settled special needs trust and the third party trust. The self settled trust would be a trust created by the beneficiary; this is common if someone is injured in an accident and receives a large settlement. The trust would be created in order to hold the money received in the settlement so that any government assistance the person is receiving would not be affected.

The third party special needs trust is the type of trust that is created by a parent or a grandparent, and will hold assets meant for a loved one. This type of trust is often part of the estate plan and is meant to hold assets for the beneficiary.

The trustee that handles the special needs trust must be familiar with how they can distribute money and assets without causing the disabled person to become disqualified. Distributions from the trust cannot pay for any services that the government is paying for, such as housing, covered medical cared, food, etc.

The special needs trust can pay for supplemental care, such as an in home caregiver, dental care, and clothes. The trust can also own a home that the disabled person is living in, but to maintain benefits the person must be paying some type of rent for the home.

If you have a loved one that is physically or mentally disabled, you may want to consider creating a special needs trust for them; this is the safest method of leaving an inheritance without disrupting government benefits.

Duffy Law Office is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.