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Our visit with the attorney

August 12th, 2013 at 02:31 pm

We visited our attorney on Friday. As a reminder, the reason for our appointment was to have him set up special needs trusts for our two boys .

I was fairly ignorant on what exactly a special needs trust is. What I did know was that it a special needs trust is a way to shelter money earmarked for their use that doesn't count as an asset if/when they qualify for social security payments after age 18.

I'll pause here for a moment. Let me be very clear - I hope that both boys lead very productive adult lives, employed to the fullest of their abilities. They were each adopted out of foster care, and DS1 is autistic, and DS2 has cerebral paulsey, and fetal alcohol syndrome. We need to plan for the worst.

Anyway, what our attorney told us is that he would add an amendment to our existing estate planning documents. We should set up separate savings accounts for each of them, and refer to those savings accounts in the amendment. That's it. Pretty easy.

Immediately after our attorney appointment was finished, we drove to our bank, and set up new savings accounts, one for each son. We put $1,000 in each account.

We'll continue to add to those accounts through the years - cash birthday gifts, money that they may earn through the sale of 4-H animals, and we'll periodically add our own money.

We will need to drop off our current trust papers to the attorney. Somehow neither one of us thought to bring them with us on Friday. But, it's done. Fairly simple.

Completely unrelated - I said in one of my posts last week that the porch renovation would only take a couple of days. That was a fantasy. The contractor didn't understand that when my wife said that the entrance to the house needed to be "barrier free" that she meant that it needed to be "free of barriers". We lost all of Friday when new plans were made. They are working on it again today.

Posted in Foster Care | 2 Comments »

2 Responses to “Our visit with the attorney”

  1. Beawealthywarrior Says:
    August 12th, 2013 at 02:48 pm 1376318919
    1376318919

    I too have a special needs child but she is much older. I also have amendments to my living trust that spells out what I want to happen after I'm gone. One thing I've always been told is never to put anything in her name directly because it can be looked at as if she has assets and that may disqualify her for certain benefits like SSI. I do have a savings account in her name but me at the payee rep but that's required for her SSI payments but I only keep $5 in there to show that its open.

  2. Bob B. Says:
    August 12th, 2013 at 02:55 pm 1376319319
    1376319319

    Oh, yes, absolutely - nothing in their names. The accounts have only our names attached to them officially - my name and DW's name. We'll keep our own personal records as to which account is intended for which son, and refer to them accordingly in the trust documentation. But, officially the savings accounts are mine and my wife's.

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