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EdLoweLaw OP t1_jd7whly wrote

Reply to comment by TimeTraveler3056 in IAMA Connecticut estate planning and trusts attorney. AMA about estate planning in our great state! by EdLoweLaw

Certainly any inheritance that someone would want to go to either of those people should instead go into a special needs trust for their benefit.

A special needs trust is an irrevocable trust designed to hold assets for a beneficiary, allowing them to benefit from their needs-based state program AND benefit from their inheritance WITHOUT the state being able to recover from the inheritance.

The person who needs to do that type of planning is the person who plans on leaving an inheritance behind for someone on a needs-based program like Medicaid. They would set the terms of the trust while they’re alive, but it would stay empty until they’ve passed, at which point the inheritance would go to the beneficiary’s special needs trust, rather than the beneficiary as an individual.

It’s difficult to say what an attorney would charge for this work. Depending on what is needed in the planning costs would likely start in the low thousands. A consultation with a trusts and estates attorney should allow the attorney to give them a fee quote, and it’ll likely be a flat fee instead of hourly.

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TimeTraveler3056 t1_jd7yqlu wrote

Thank you. If the back up guardian set up a trust and the parent got an inheritance could the parent just say No, put it in the trust? Or could the inheritance go to the back up gaurdian to put it in there? Or does it gave to be the old sick person revisiting the lawyer to do this?

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EdLoweLaw OP t1_jd8p2gq wrote

Gotta be made by the old sick person in this case, because it’s their assets that will ultimately go into the special needs trust. That’s how we maintain the protection of the assets, the one receiving the benefit has no say over the trust’s terms.

If the old sick person isn’t able to travel to work with an attorney, much can be done over the phone or email. If they signed a power of attorney, one of the powers given to their agent may have been the power to do this legal work for them as well. It’s worth asking the attorney about for sure.

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