What to do after you have signed your wills and special needs trust

1. Store your Wills and trust in a safe place in your house, where you store your important papers. An unlocked fireproof file is a great way to store them. You can get one by clicking here. Unlocked because you need to be sure your Personal Representative (Executor) has access to them to give to your lawyer or to file them with the court. 
2. Let your Personal Representative (Executor), as well as the Trustee of the Special Needs Trust, know where they are and how they can get access to them.
3. Give the Personal Representative (Executor), as well as the Trustee of the Special Needs Trust a copy of the Wills and Special Needs Trust, electronic and or paper copies.
4. Change the beneficiaries of your retirement accounts, life insurance policies, or other brokerage accounts, for your child with a disability to the Special Needs Trust.
5. Let relatives know you have created a Special Needs Trust for your child with a disability. This is to be sure if Grandma or Grandpa or Aunts and Uncles, etc. plan on leaving money to your child with a disability in their will, let them know they should leave the portion for the child with a disability to the Special Needs Trust. “to the trustee under The ‘your child with a disability’s name’ Trust for the benefit of your child with a disability’s name’.”
6. Decide whether you want to fund the trust now.
   • Most people do not fund the Special Needs, it gets funded only after your death with the assets you have designated to go to your child with a disability from your will or as the beneficiary of a retirement account or life insurance policy, etc.
   • Do not fund the trust with assets that belong to your child with a disability. Those funds need to be treated differently with what is called a First Party Trust. For more information click here. 
   • You should also consider creating an ABLE Account depending on the amount of assets.
   • If you are funding the trust now you need to open a bank account. To do this you need a tax id. You can get one by clicking here to go to the IRS website. (We can do this for you for a fee. ) Once you have the Tax ID you bring that number and a copy of the trust to the bank to open the account.
7. If you have any questions about any of this contact us.

Need Information About Special Needs Trusts?

I am Tom Sannicandro, a Special Needs Trust Attorney and I am here to help. I am the founder of a nonprofit corporation that provides quality information about resources available to families as well as providing affordable Special Needs Trusts and estate planning for families. I have over 20 years of experience helping families just like yours. Find out more information at SpecialNeedsTrustsOnline.com or click here to set up a free appointment.