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Sometimes teens and adults with disabilities may require the help of others to make daily decisions on their own behalves. When this happens, a conservator is named by the courts who can oversee the individual’s finances and personal care.

Selecting the right person to serve as a trustee for a Special Needs Trust is important, as he/she will need to make distributions, file tax returns and carry out numerous other duties that go along with administering a trust.

Most people in the disability community have heard about ABLE (Achieving Better Life Experiences) Accounts. If you haven’t, it is similar to a 529 College Savings Plan, but allows tax-free withdrawals to be used for qualified disability expenses.

A study in the Journal of Intellectual and Developmental Disabilities reports that only 3.6% of parents surveyed who have children with intellectual and developmental disabilities have established legal guardianship/conservatorship, Powers of Attorney or have secured residential placement for their child in the event the child outlives them.

Unfortunately, many parents of children with special needs wait until their child turns 18 to consider creating a Special Needs Trust. Sometimes they even wait until their child eventually needs government benefits like SSI or Medi-Cal.

The Achieving a Better Life Experience (ABLE) Act, which was created by Congress in 2014, allows people with disabilities and their families to save up to $100,000 in accounts for the benefit of a disabled person.

Children with special needs, or Children with Special Health Care Needs as defined by the Social Security Act, are eligible to receive a number of government benefits to pay for the aid, care, and services that are available to them.

When it comes to creating a special needs plan for a loved one with disabilities, as a Folsom special needs lawyer, it’s the hope that all family members are in agreement and ideally on the same page. But, even if everyone is working together, there can be issues when the parents are divorced.