Illinois Elder Law Special Needs Trusts

Carol Nolan has developed a niche in special needs planning, working with families to ensure disabled people with special needs are provided for. She knows how to maintain continued eligibility for Medicaid benefits while allowing supplements to be received from special needs trusts.

The purpose of this trust is to maximize private resources available to a person with special needs to provide for his or her own care, and also to ensure that the disabled person remains qualified, or is able to qualify in the future, for federal, state and local government benefits. Currently, in Illinois and in many other states, such trusts are exempt from consideration as an available resource to the disabled person and are insulated from reimbursement claims by the state when the disabled person dies. This trust is often implemented by parents of a disabled minor or adult child who does not want that child to inherit a substantial amount of money which would disqualify them from government benefits. Funds of the trust are used to supplement the governmental benefits that their disabled child receives. Upon the death of the disabled child, the trust funds may be distributed to other beneficiaries. 

The trustee of a special needs trust has sole discretion to expend as much of the income or principal of the trust as appropriate for the benefit of the individual's comforts and needs not provided for by government benefits. No trust income may be used for the ordinary care, comfort and welfare so long as there are sufficient monies available for that purpose from federal, state, and local governmental agencies. Trust assets are to supplement and not substitute. The trustee may not distribute cash to the individual at any time, and the individual may not demand any distribution of funds.

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