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Mar
Everything You Need to Know About Estate Planning for Special Needs Children
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Everything You Need to Know About Estate Planning for Special Needs Children
Estate planning is an important step every family must take. Unfortunately, 64% of Americans have not made a will. If you’re one of them, you need to think about estate planning and get started on your plan now.
This is especially true if you have a special needs child. This adds other factors to consider when making your estate plan.
Here’s what you need to know about special needs planning.
How to Start Your Special Needs Planning
Here are the steps you need to take to complete your plan.
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Get Organized.
You’ll need to collect information about your financials, the names of medical providers, Your child’s medical history, and any legal documents such as power of attorney or health care directives.
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Draft a Will
You need to plan for how your special needs child is cared for should you die or become incapacitated. It is important you make sure your child is cared for in the best way possible.
This means naming a legal guardian for your child. Otherwise, it will be up to a judge to appoint someone.
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Create a Letter of Intent
This is not a legal document, but it provides you with the opportunity to give detailed instructions to the guardian about how to care for your special needs child.
After all, nobody knows better than you what your child likes and what they need.
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Develop a Special Needs Trust
A special needs trust ensures your child will still qualify for government benefits such as Supplemental Security Income and Medicaid.
The trust puts the guardian in control of managing the fund and taking over duties such as filing taxes. If money is given directly to the child, it will reduce or eliminate government benefits.
The trust can also supplement the government aid to provide additional income for the care of your special needs child. However, establishing the trust is complicated and the rules for setting up the trust can vary from state to state.
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Review and Update Your Plan
Once you’ve made the plan, you still need to review it periodically and update the plan should circumstances change. Also, tax laws can change and require you to update your plan accordingly.
Updating your plan can include changing documents or rethinking how you approached the planning. This will often require the assistance of an attorney who specializes in estate planning and who understands special needs planning.
Make Your Estate Plan
Setting up your estate plan can be challenging. Special needs planning adds complexity to the process.
As much as this seems like a daunting process, working with a skilled and experienced lawyer can make a big difference.
They will know all the things you need to think about and what legal requirements exist in your state. That way you can be confident you’ve taken care of everything and your special needs child will be cared for in accordance with your wishes.
We’re here to help. As experienced estate planners, we can help you set up your estate plan.
Contact us today and we’ll get your estate planning started.
Jan
4 Key Benefits Of Having Your Estate Attorney Set Up A Trust
Planning your relative’s estate can be a difficult and emotional topic.
This difficulty, along with the amount of legal understanding involved make it necessary for you to hire an estate attorney.
When you contact an estate attorney, make sure to have them put together a trust. Forming a trust is one of the best ways to handle an estate, and estate lawyers are the most qualified to put them together.
If you’re on the fence about this and want to learn why you should have an attorney set up a trust, start with these four points below.
Your Estate Attorney Can Help You to (Legally) Avoid Taxes
One of the foundational principles of wealth is minimizing taxes whenever you can.
This remains every bit as true when dealing with handling an estate. You’ll want to avoid heavy estate taxation when getting an inheritance so that you can use the money however you need.
That’s where an estate attorney comes into play.
These lawyers will help you to shield the estate from taxes. They will first and foremost take an all-encompassing look at the estate and then determine how much tax liability you owe.
From here, they’ll work diligently to reduce the tax bill altogether.
Helps Prevent Litigation
While going through the estate process is also matched with grieving, it’s important to know that it’s not uncommon to get sued during this time.
People might contest the delegation of a will, which leaves you open to months or years of more litigation.
When you have an estate attorney put together a trust for you, the likelihood of having it contested is dramatically reduced.
Hashing out the legal matters on the front end in the form of a trust makes the important details ironclad and much harder to contest.
You Will Get Your Inheritance Faster
The last thing you would want is to have your inheritance tied up as the details are hashed out.
When you have a lawyer a trust, the inheritance process is streamlined, which is good for you and everyone with a claim to the estate.
This is especially important if you plan to invest your inheritance or otherwise use it.
For instance, many people use their inheritance to pay off student debt, open their own company, invest in stocks and other investments or become a homeowner for the first time.
Your lawyer will also be able to advise you on these matters of investment and the implications that come with each option. They can also point you toward financial experts in their network that can be helpful.
These Documents Are Of Life Changing Importance
Because these legal matters literally change the course of lives, it doesn’t make sense to go about them alone.
Having an attorney on your side that handles estate trusts lessens the burden tremendously. This is why estate attorneys like Audrey Rhodes, of Rhodes Law Firm, PC, work diligently to create these trusts.
If you’re interested in a trust and don’t know where to start, get in touch with us today.
May
Now that April showers have come and passed, and May flowers are blooming right before our eyes, we welcome National Elder Law Month!
The month of May was designated as National Elder Law Month back in 1987 by the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys. In that time, there was an increasing demand for legal needs pertaining to the senior community, people with special needs, and their families.
As members of the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys, Rhodes Law Firm is taking this time to increase community awareness, and to allow our team to assist you and your family with these common issues (but not limited to):
- Tax Planning
- Estate Planning
- Medicaid
- Medicare
- Long-term Care
- Social Security
- Asset Protection
- Estate and Trust Administration
Call our office to schedule an appointment, and please look through our list of provided services!
Apr
Generation Y, or more commonly known as Millennials, are reaching the stages in life that include the start of their career, first day of college, buying their first house or car… Let’s just say it’s a lot of “firsts.”
You can imagine when the term estate planning reaches their ears, it doesn’t automatically turn into a priority; what happens is their face goes from normal to confused. Although understandable, it’s certainly a topic that its importance should really be explained thoroughly.
Think about it.
What if there’s a couple in a domestic partnership and something happens to one of them? If there’s not an estate plan intact, the surviving partner has little-to-no say in the matter of what happens to the other’s belongings or finances.
Even for the young families. What’s next if something happens to the parents? Who will step in?
Take a look at the sourced article for further insight on these scenarios, and spread the word that estate planning really shouldn’t begin at the age of 40 or 50, but sooner.