Estate Planning

Five Massachusetts attorneys have written an uncomplicated, user-friendly guide for those charged with administering a special needs trust.

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.

Each public benefits program has restrictions that the special needs trust must comply with in order not to jeopardize the beneficiary's continued eligibility for public benefits. Both Medicaid and SSI are quite restrictive, making it difficult for a beneficiary to...

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...

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...