Assistance with Special Needs Planning in Inglewood
Special needs planning in Inglewood, California and the surrounding communities is complex. If you have a friend or family member with special needs, we can help.
We provide help to people who need assistance in planning for a loved one with special needs. If your plan is to gift a special needs person financially, contact our office. Our attorney can help you understand the legal implications of the gift. This helps ensure it’s structured appropriately, so the money is well managed. In addition, the disabled person doesn’t risk the loss of benefits. If you’re caring for a special needs person who will receive an injury or other settlement, we can also help.
You can learn more about special needs planning and get the help you need, call our office at (310) 677-9787. Our caring team can help you craft a comprehensive plan to ensure security for your family. We can also offer information about general estate planning questions you may have. Those questions might be:
- Why is special needs planning important?
- What should be part of a special needs plan?
- How can an Los Angeles special needs planning lawyer help you?
Why is Special Needs Planning in Inglewood Important?
A person with special needs who receives a financial sum or assets may not manage the money and property effectively. This money could come from a personal injury settlement if the disabling condition resulted from an accident. Parents, caregivers, or relatives often leave money or give inter vivos gifts to loved ones with special needs.
Special needs planning ensures assets given to a person with disabilities are managed properly through a named trustee. A trustee can be named and instructions given to ensure the assets are used exclusively for the disabled person. With the trust creation document, you can be as specific as you want about how the money is used. This way, you can ensure the funds enrich the quality of life of the person with special needs.
Special needs planning is also important because it is common for a person with a disability to receive means-tested government benefits. The most common benefits include Medicaid coverage for medical care and nursing home care, as well as Supplemental Security Income (SSI). When receiving means-tested benefits, an inheritance or a cash gift can result in disqualification from those benefits.
Leaving an inheritance to a person with special needs could result in losing essential benefits like Medicaid coverage for medical bills. Medicaid planning protects assets given to a disabled person from disqualifying them from essential benefits. Such disqualification could be financially devastating, and an entire inheritance or gift could be spent quickly to pay for lost medical care or other coverage.
What Should Be Part of a Special Needs Plan?
A special needs plan should typically involve creating a special needs trust so money or property given to the person with disabilities can be owned by the trust. The use of a special needs trust solves many problems, including allowing the appointment of a trustee to manage assets and preventing the assets from counting when determining resource levels for means-tested benefits.
Planning for someone with special needs may also involve more than just trust creation when parents and caregivers are planning. If you oversee day-to-day care of a person with a disabling condition, you need to make provisions for what will happen when you are no longer around to provide that care. Naming a guardian may be necessary, and you may wish to arrange where the person with the disability will live after you are gone.
Because a plan needs to be personalized based on your relationship with the person with special needs and their unique needs, your plan should be created in consultation with professionals who can advise you on how to make the laws work for you.
How Can a Special Needs Planning Lawyer Help You?
We provide comprehensive assistance with special needs planning to clients in Los Angeles, Inglewood, Santa Monica, Torrance, and surrounding areas. To learn more about how we can assist you, give us a call at (310) 677-9787 or contact us online.
