Estate Planning

The most challenging obstacle for many individuals with disabilities is to find a safe, clean, and affordable place to live. Currently, many individuals with disabilities rely on Supplemental Security Income (SSI), Section 8 housing vouchers, distributions from a...

To help parents manage the long-term financial security of children with special needs, Massachusetts Mutual and Easter Seals have released a 10-point set of question-and-answer guidelines.

A parent with a child with special needs should consider buying life insurance to help fund the special needs trust set up for the child's support. What may look like a substantial sum to leave in trust today may run...

A friend or relative should never sign anything for a person who lacks capacity unless he has authority to act on behalf of the incapacitated person.

Special needs trusts (also known as "supplemental needs" trusts) allow a disabled beneficiary to receive gifts, lawsuit settlements, or other funds and yet not lose his or her eligibility for certain government programs. Such trusts are drafted so that the...

Some parents choose to avoid the complication of a trust by leaving their estates to one or more of their healthy children, relying on them to use the funds for the benefit of their disabled siblings. This is not a...

In almost all cases where a parent will leave funds at death to a child with special needs, this should be done in the form of a trust. Trusts set up for the care of a child with special needs...

One question that typically comes up when an attorney is drafting a special needs trust for a beneficiary whose disability may end at some point is whether the attorney can write a clause into the special needs trust stating that...

If you don't know one trustee who knows all there is to know about caring for a person with special needs, you may want to consider setting up a care committee for your special needs trust.