As a child with developmental disabilities grows older, parents begin thinking about how to secure their loved one’s financial future as the care they need can be expensive. While government programs and community resources provide essential help, significant family resources are often needed as well. Planning an inheritance for a child with a developmental disability requires special considerations. Here’s why:

A direct gift or bequest may not be appropriate, for two major reasons:

1. The individual may not be capable of managing significant assets without assistance;
2. It may be necessary to maintain eligibility for government programs that have income and asset limits

One alternative to a direct gift is making a gift to a family member, such as a sibling, who can  be trusted to use the assets in the best interests of the individual with a disability. However, the family member must be willing and able to take on that responsibility and the gift would then become part of his or her estate, leaving it open to be lost in a divorce or claimed by creditors.

Another alternative is a special needs trust, which can help the individual with special needs maintain eligibility for government programs, while making funds available to enhance his or her quality of life. Creating a special needs trust is a complex task that should be done with the assistance of an estate planning attorney, experienced with special needs issues.

Interested in learning more about Special Needs Trusts? Click on the links below:

• FAQ’s about SNT’s
• Special Needs Planning
• Special Needs Trusts

Posted in New York Special Needs, Special Needs Trusts | Comments Off on Inheritance: When a Child Has a Developmental Disability
Tags: inheritance, special needs trusts, supplemental needs trust

Watch our live webinar on January 15, 2014 from 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM (EST).

Join Bernard A. Krooks of Littman Krooks LLP and Ryan Platt of A Special Needs Plan (moderated by Keith Caldwell, founder of Failuretoplan.com) to present a live webinar for families on  special needs planning.

For details or to participate, please register by clicking here. To join the Facebook Event page, click here.

Who Will Take Care of My Child with Special Needs When I am Gone?

By Keith Caldwell, Founder, Failuretoplan.com

This is the question that kept me up one night a few years ago.  Not having an answer to this question is what started me on my journey of discovery for my family and it was the idea behind the creation of the website www.FailuretoPlan.com. I needed answers so that I could sleep comfortably knowing that if something were to happen to me that night, there was a plan in place that would take over and protect my family when I could no longer.

But, my child has autism and I have always been concerned about his future. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to plan for my child’s future because his future weighed heavily on me — I just didn’t know what to do or where to go for expert guidance and direction.  I was so busy with speech therapy, OT, IEPs, typical IEP’s for my special child and the sports leagues, practices, student government activities of my oldest child…

…Overwhelmed at times doesn’t begin to describe how I felt and days quickly turned in weeks which turned into months and, then, into years.  No long term planning was getting done with all of this activity in my life.  Can any of you reading this relate?

For me, to create a truly comprehensive plan, I had to come to terms with my own mortality and the fact of the matter is that ignoring the inevitable will not delay its’ coming.  If you fail to plan, you are planning to fail and failure was not an option for my child and my family.  Making no decision is a decision onto itself. Your little child with special needs will become an adult with special needs in the blink of an eye.

No one wants to talk about our mortality but everyone should.  Finding a team of professionals to help you navigate through the special needs planning process is a critically important task for all caregivers.  Through my own research, I learned of A Special Needs Plan – a leading expert of comprehensive special needs planning and Littman Krooks – the premier special needs planning legal firm in the country.

I spoke to both Bernard Krooks of Littman Krooks and Ryan Platt with A Special Needs Plan and  what struck me most about each of them was their sincere interest in wanting to help educate parents on the planning process.  I brought up my idea to create a series of online interviews that could help walk a parent through the key elements of preparing a plan for their special child and they both readily agreed.   We have completed several of these interviews already and you can watch and listen to them on our website.  Each one is about 25-30 minutes long.

It was important to me that what I learned on my journey, I would be able to share with other parents and caregivers.  Utilizing social media platforms makes it easy to document my learning and make it available to you through YouTube and other social media outlets.  You can watch the “live” interviews on YouTube or Google+ as they take place and ask questions of Ryan and Bernard live on the day of our interviews.

If one of your goals is to finally get your special needs plan completed in 2014, I would encourage you to listen to our previous interviews and put the upcoming ones on your calendar so you can learn how to set up a plan for your family in the new year.

Posted in Autism, New York Special Needs, Special Needs Trusts | Comments Off on Who Will Take Care of My Child with Special Needs When I am Gone?
Tags: bernard a krooks, disability, failure to plan, google hangout, guardianship, littman krooks, special needs, special needs trusts