Estate Planning

A Virginia court has ruled in favor of a 29-year-old woman with Down syndrome and refused to grant her mother's guardianship petition. The court chose to name the woman's friends and employers as her guardians instead, as she had requested...

A California mother recently went to great lengths to obtain an inheritance from her deceased son's special needs trust, but a court decided that her attempt went too far and awarded half of the trust to the woman's ex-husband, even...

Help is available for families of children with special needs whose private health insurance will no longer cover children once they reach a certain age. The new federal health insurance law requires many private insurers to allow children to remain...

A bill recently introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives would finally allow military retirees to name special needs trusts as beneficiaries of Survivor Benefit Plans, a change that could dramatically improve the lives of military children with disabilities.

Attorneys who focus on special needs planning have dedicated their practices to helping families with a wide variety of legal issues, and they must master a vast section of the legal canon in order to properly assist their clients. Here's...

You may not want to leave any of the money in your estate directly to a relative with special needs, but the fine print in your estate planning documents might cause a catastrophic distribution anyway.

After years of behind-the-scenes advocacy by a Florida couple, Congressman Ted Deutch (D-FL) recently introduced a bill that would provide a tax credit of up to $5,000 for people who incur legal expenses while pursing a guardianship of an adult...

Administering the California Special Needs Trust is the closest thing to having a special needs planner on call, 24 hours a day, no matter what state you're in.

Unique tax benefits are available to families with special needs individuals. Here's a partial rundown offered by a professor of accounting.