Protecting Property After Death

Mother dies with a will leaving all of her assets to her three children in equal shares. One of her adult daughters receives Medicaid benefits because her assets are less than $2,000 and she has a very low income due to a disability. Such daughter is expected to receive a distribution of $25,000 from mother’s estate. This will cause daughter to lose her public benefits, which will be disastrous for daughter given the very high costs of her medications.

While daughter could petition a court to create a special type of Supplemental Needs Trust, known as a “d4a trust” and once she receives the distribution from the estate, deposit the funds into such trust, there are significant costs to establishing such a d4a trust, and there are administrative burdens associated with such trust, including annual reporting to the State Medicaid authority. Moreover, a d4a trust requires payback to the state for any Medicaid benefits if there are funds remaining in the trust when the trust beneficiary dies. Given the amount to be distributed, one must weigh whether it is worth the cost of setting up a d4a trust if there are other less costly alternatives.

Fortunately, Maryland law provides an opportunity for a trust to be created in a simpler way. Under the Maryland Discretionary Trust Act, a trust may be established for a beneficiary, and the assets in the trust will not be considered to be available resources for Medicaid purposes. Moreover, unlike a d4a trust, there is no requirement to pay back Medicaid for benefits received during lifetime after the beneficiary dies.

While Mother in her will could have provided for a Maryland Discretionary Act trust for daughter, she failed to do so. Nevertheless, the Maryland Discretionary Trust Act provides that “any person having a right to transfer property to another person may create a trust as a transferor under [the Maryland Discretionary Trust Act].” Under this law, the term “person” includes any legal entity, and a probate estate is a legal entity.

William M. Gatesman presently is working with clients to come up with creative solutions to allow estate beneficiaries to retain their essential public benefits where the decedent’s will did not provide for asset protection in light of those public benefits. Establishing a Maryland Discretionary Trust Act trust is one of the tools in Mr. Gatesman’s tool kit to achieve the objective of protecting a beneficiary’s eligibility for public benefits.