04.08.25

Thinking about a time when you may not be here to support your children can be frightening for parents. If you have a child with Special Educational Needs and Disabilities (SEND), their future can be especially difficult to think about as they may have varying needs throughout their lifetime.  It’s natural to worry about how your child will manage without you and what effect any changes will have on them.

Leaving an inheritance to a child with SEND

Most of us are aware that we should make a Will to set out how we want to provide for our family.  Unfortunately, dying without having a Will in place means that you have no control over how your assets are distributed to family members. For families with a child with SEND, not putting in place the right plans to reflect the family’s individual circumstances can cause huge problems. This blog aims to identify the problems and discusses the options available.

Vulnerability

A person with SEND can be extremely vulnerable, especially when it comes to managing financial matters and making important decisions. It’s important to consider that leaving money directly to a person with SEND may increase their vulnerability and leave them open to financial abuse. Your child may have the required mental capacity to make financial decisions, however, they may make unwise decisions or they could be vulnerable to influence from others to spend any inheritance inappropriately or even give it away.

Means-tested benefits

Leaving money directly to a child with SEND in a Will can also have a detrimental effect on any means-tested benefits and care provision they’re entitled to. When receiving financial support in the form of means-tested benefits and/or local authority funding, a financial assessment will be carried out to determine the person’s eligibility.  This assessment will take into account any income and capital that they have and, depending on the amounts, this may affect their entitlement to benefits or funding.

What can I do?

A Trust can be a useful tool to provide financial stability for your child with SEND throughout their lifetime. It allows you to provide for your child without making a gift directly to them. Instead, the gift is placed under the control of Trustees to use for the benefit of your child with SEND and others (the Beneficiaries).

The type of Trust required will depend on the individual, the flexibility needed, and the value and type of assets involved.

A Discretionary Trust is one where more than one person may benefit, and it is for the Trustees to decide how and when any of these Beneficiaries, but particularly your child with SEND, will benefit from it. You can ask the Trustees to put certain Beneficiaries’s needs first, and benefit the other people later however there is no limit on what they can decide to do between the Beneficiaries.

A Vulnerable or Disabled Person’s Trust can be used where the main person to benefit from it qualifies as a ‘vulnerable or disabled beneficiary’. The Trustees are limited in the benefit they can give to Beneficiaries other than you child with SEND. A Vulnerable or Disabled Person’s Trust receives a different and usually advantageous tax regime compared to a Discretionary Trust.

Benefits of a Trust

As the Trustees are in control of how the assets held in the Trust are used to benefit your child with SEND, this protects your child from having to make difficult decisions for themselves and from any negative influence from others.

Also, the Beneficiaries of these Trusts do not have any fixed entitlement to receive assets from the Trust, so any assets held in the Trust will not affect their entitlement to means-tested benefits or local authority funding.

Therefore, the advantages of using one of these types of Trust are that they avoid leaving an inheritance directly to your child with SEND thereby protecting from vulnerability and preserving means tested benefits.

How can we help?

Our team specialise in planning for the future for families with a child who has SEND. We are able to fully advise you on the creation and administration of a suitable Trust which best suits your circumstances. We can also work with you to put Wills in place to ensure the Trust for your child with SEND receives the inheritance you intend. We can also support you with other aspects of planning for the future for your child with SEND including assets which may not pass under the terms of your Will and Inheritance Tax advice to maximise the inheritance received by the Trust and other family members. Our team can also advise on Lasting Powers of Attorney for yourself and Decision Making for your child with SEND. We also have specialist advisers who can help with benefits issues.

To discuss your family’s individual circumstances and the options available to you, please do get in touch, email  [email protected] or call us 01273 610 611