Special Needs Trusts and Other Sources of Support

When two trusts for the same beneficiary have different remaindermen, and one trust is a special needs trust created by her parents and the other is a self-settled irrevocable special needs trust, the court found that the intentions of the settlors, as expressed in the trust documents, were that the (larger) parents’ trust should first be spent for the care of the beneficiary until both trusts were equal in value.  When both trusts became equal, the remainder beneficiaries may provide trustees with evidence of “probable future needs” to allow the trustees to consider in determining whether to continue to pay all of the beneficiary’s expenses from the parents’ trust or pay some expenses from the self-settled trust.  Brennen Trusts, 4 Fid. Rep. 3d 146 (O.C. Lehigh 2014) (Opinion by Johnson, J.)

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