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

Often parents want to avoid that money be paid outright to the child, because the child may not be able to manage it properly and/or because receiving the funds directly may cause the child to lose public benefits, such as Supplemental Security Income (SSI) and Medicaid.

Why is it so important to create a Trust as early in the child’s life as possible, one reason is that in 1999, Congress enacted laws making it much more difficult to create a trust for a person with special needs after having received an inheritance.

It has never been more important to parents, to create the trust as part of their estate plan now…not later.