New will for family with learning disabled offspring

Yorkshireman99

larkim wrote: »

That is actually very relevant. I used to work (in a non-care role) in a learning disability care organisation. There were numerous service users whose parents had predeceased them who were in potential receipt of capital / income from discretionary trusts of varying sorts, but for whom for all practical purposes they had very little want or need of money.

In fully funded NHS care provision (as is the case for a period post-Sectioning, and might be the case in other situations where the disability falls into the NHS hands for continuing care rather than social care provided for by local authorities) even if the offspring inherit the whole sum outright, the NHS can't "go after" the funds ("Free at the point of delivery" etc etc).

If the provision is social care, then the local authority is obliged to try to recover costs from the service user if their income / capital exceeds certain thresholds, but clearly discretionary trusts can go some way (under current law - no guarantees about the future) to protecting all / most of that inheritance. But if someone is being provided by social care services and their needs are being met, there ought to be relatively little "need" for substantial sums of cash. My experience was that, beyond supporting the cost of holidays and entertainment (e.g. a big TV, sky subscription if they are a football fan etc etc) it was often quite hard for the care providers to find good uses of the inherited monies. You could make a case for a substantially "nicer" and more luxurious care provision, but unless the pot of inheritance was very substantial, that sort of provision could very rapidly eat up the entire income / capital, especially if the recipient had expectations of a relatively normal life-span and so it was often in the best interests of the recipient not to create turmoil in their lives by moving care provider, only to be "downgraded" later.

I think my issue with the quantum of any provision is that at age 14 we currently don't know what the adult life provision for my offspring will be. When they are 24 etc we'll understand it better, and can then probably make a better and more appropriate provision for their likely future adult financial needs than we can today.

Perhaps "not knowing" means we should be ultra-cautious - make a disproportionate provision for them now, with the expectation that we'll change that as circumstances change in the future with a hope that we'll be able the equalise the entitlement across their siblings if at all possible.

Whilst it is obviously a complex and harrowing situation this calls for clear thinking. To me, as an outsider, it seems some kind of discretionary trust is called for but how this can be structured and suitable trustees found without large on going costs is a job for experts who have past expereince in this field. I certainly don't think "wait and see" is a good option for you. HTH