What is the best way to contribute financially to a disabled family member?
It is likely that a disabled family member will need to rely at some point upon a financial needs based benefit program, like SSI or Medicaid. If you leave a large gift outright to a disabled beneficiary, you could inadvertently be destroying his or her Medicaid or SSI eligibility and forcing the expenditure of the gift or inheritance on items that otherwise would have been provided by a public benefit program. I often recommend setting up a supplemental needs trust in your will which can receive and hold a beneficiarys inheritance and use that money to pay for those non-support items that Medicaid and SSI will not cover. You can also set up a Sole Benefit Trust for the beneficiary to receive gifts and inheritance from third parties, but no property of the beneficiary may ever be used to fund the Sole Benefit Trust, even partially.
