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Protect Your Family Member’s Benefits, Not Just Their Inheritance
If you are caring for a family member with a disability, you need a plan that protects them financially without putting their Medicaid or Supplemental Security Income (SSI) at risk. A special needs trust is not the same as a regular will, and Kentucky has strict rules about who can create one and how. If you get a detail wrong, the money meant to help your loved one can end up costing them the benefits they depend on every day.
As a Bowling Green special needs planning lawyer, Attorney Mark Collins builds trusts and long-term plans that hold up. Mark has practiced law in Kentucky since 1994 and belongs to the National Academy of Elder Law Attorneys (NAELA). He works alongside Jill Collins, BSW, LSW, the firm’s licensed social work consultant, who reviews your family’s situation before a document gets drafted. When we are done, you will understand how your family member’s benefits are protected, and you will have a clear plan in place for when you are no longer the one managing it.
| Practicing Law in Kentucky Since 1994 | Member, NAELA | Avvo 5.0/5.0 Rating – Client Review | Social Worker on Staff |
Service that makes a difference.
As a special needs planning attorney serving Bowling Green and Warren County, Mark handles the full range of tools families need to protect a loved one with a disability, including:
A first-party trust is funded with money that already belongs to your family member, often from a settlement or an inheritance paid to them directly. This must be set up before your family member turns 65.
A third-party trust is different. It holds money someone else sets aside for their benefit, which gives your family more flexibility in how it is structured.
We also help families update an existing trust that was drafted somewhere else, whether in another state or years ago.
Every plan starts with the same question: what does this specific person need to keep their benefits and have a better life?
Medicaid and SSI are means tested. That means even a small inheritance, a cash gift, or money left directly to your family member in a will can push them over the resource limit and cut off their benefits overnight. A trust that is written incorrectly, funded the wrong way, or never approved by a court can fail the same test a poorly drafted one would. We have seen families lose months of coverage while a mistake gets untangled. The fix almost always costs more than doing it right the first time would have.
A properly structured special needs trust keeps the inheritance available for extras like therapy, transportation, and equipment, without touching the benefits your family member relies on for food, housing, and medical care.
Kentucky law does not let just anyone set up a special needs trust and walk away. Under KRS 387.865, only specific people can petition a court to create one, and a judge has to approve it before it takes effect. That list includes a legal guardian, a conservator, someone holding power of attorney, the special needs person, or the person’s spouse, sibling, niece, or nephew, as well as a trustee or estate representative. If no one on this list is available, a lawyer or caregiver can sometimes step in instead. Whoever files, a judge still has to approve the trust before it takes effect.
For families in Bowling Green, that petition is filed through the Warren County District Court at the Warren County Justice Center, 1001 Center Street, Bowling Green. The same court handles related guardianship and conservatorship matters for a family member who cannot manage their own affairs.
Getting the trust right matters even after it is funded. Kentucky’s Medicaid estate recovery rules, found in 907 KAR 1:585, allow the state to seek repayment from the estate of someone who was 55 or older and received nursing home care, or certain home- and community-based waiver services before they died.
A: We start by reviewing your family member’s benefits, income, and any money or property that might come their way, then walk through what kind of trust or guardianship fits their situation.
A: Not if it is set up and funded correctly under Kentucky law. That is the entire purpose of the trust: to hold extra money or property so it does not count against the resource limits Medicaid and SSI use to decide eligibility.
A: Cost depends on whether you need a first-party trust that requires court approval, a simpler third-party trust, or a full guardianship petition alongside it. We go over the likely scope and cost during your first meeting, once we understand what your family needs.
Every family’s situation is different, and the right structure depends on what your family member has now and what they may receive later. That is exactly what we sort out together.
You do not have to figure out Kentucky’s special needs trust rules on your own, and you should not have to guess whether a plan you found online will hold up in Kentucky courts. As your Bowling Green special needs planning lawyer, we bring more than three decades of Kentucky legal experience and a licensed social worker into that first conversation, so the plan we build fits your family, not a generic template.
Contact us to schedule a consultation, and we will walk through your family member’s situation together before you make any decisions.
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