Estate Planning

If you care for a child or adult with special needs, you understand how important it is to be prepared. Individuals with special needs often require more-than-usual attention paid to their dietary needs, medical care, physical movements, developmental investments, entertainment-related challenges and a host of other daily necessities that individuals without special needs may take for granted. Being prepared to address these needs helps to ensure that your loved one does not suffer unnecessarily. Being prepared for what will happen to your loved one with special needs when you are no longer able to provide care is another important need that your loved one will benefit from in immeasurable ways.

If you care for a loved one with special needs but have not addressed how those needs will be met in the event that you die or become significantly incapacitated, please consider scheduling a consultation with our firm at your earliest possible convenience. A special needs trust may be an invaluable resource when it comes to caring for your loved one into the future.

Creating a Special Needs Trust

Special needs trusts are legal and financial tools used to ensure that individuals with special needs are provided for financially. At their most basic, they can help to protect government benefits owed to or currently possessed by an individual with special needs and help to protect any income, assets or other property gifted to that individual by a loved one during his or her lifetime or after death.

These trusts are particularly important for one primary: they help to maintain stability of care and financial resources that individuals with special needs require in order to live and maintain their dignity. When not managed properly, government benefits and personal assets can become drained in ways that leave individuals with special needs without access to necessities like medication, food, medical care, and reliable housing. A special needs trust can help to ensure that your loved one with special needs never has to struggle as a result of being “without.”

Estate Planning Guidance is Available

If you have a loved one with special needs and you are concerned about the best way(s) to provide for that individual now and/or when you pass away, please consider scheduling a consultation with our firm today. Our firm is dedicated to helping individuals and families ensure that their current, end-of-life and after death wishes are both legally enforceable and ultimately respected. And because none of us truly knows when our estate plans will become truly urgent business, we treat our clients’ estate planning needs with a focused and efficient sense of purpose.

Caring for a loved one with special needs can be challenging, but imagining the reality of leaving that loved one behind can be infinitely more challenging. Please schedule a consultation today so that we can explore the possibility of creating a special needs trust with you and your family. Once we better understand your family’s unique needs and priorities, we will also be able to advise you of any other relevant legal opportunities and resources. We look forward to speaking with you.

Thanks to our friends and contributors from Yee Law Group for their insight into estate planning.