My remaining parent died early this year, which means I became trustee of the special needs trust for my older brother, in his 60s and diagnosed decades ago. So far, so good.
I have a debit card and a check book. The principle amount resides at a bank/investment firm and there is a cash reserve account that I have to monitor, from which the debit card and checkbook pull. When the balance is low, I call the bank and verbally request more be put into the reserve account. A nice plus is how gracious the people are at the bank, the ones who helped me set this all up. They seem to like hearing about how he’s doing, probably because it’s outside of their normal wheelhouse conversations about interest rates and the like. One advisor said she found that SNT funds can be used for entertainment outings, and hadn’t I said my brother was a music fan, and wouldn’t it be fun to take him to a show?!! I thought for a moment she wanted to come with us. It is an unexpected bonus after years of having no siblings helping me and my trudging through so many hardships with him (and my aging parents) to have people be excited about any aspect of his care, and it leaves me with positive feelings.
I worried needlessly that my brother, who sort of understands the concept of my mom leaving a preserved amount of money for him, would fight me on wanting to buy things that weren’t appropriate. But other than a brief conversation after the funeral, he seems very content to let me handle this. Proves that trusts, no matter the amount, really are needed.
I don’t use funds to pay for his housing or food. But I’ve upgraded his work shoes, clothing and bedding. I’ve made changes to his apartment–shelves, new cleaning products, equipment. Bought him new glasses. Initially, since he’s so dialed in to his limited means, he only wanted to look at the glasses in the lowest tier of prices. The saleswoman and I urged him to humor us and choose, if price were not a consideration, the pair he really wanted. He showed us. We ordered the cheap pair that day, and I came back the next day and together we ordered him the nicer pair, as well. She cried typing up the order, saying how people like him need others to look after them.
One issue I’m having now is that because I’m using these funds to pay for some of his purchases, like the shoes, and he is not buying them, his personal checking account is above the $2,000 SSI asset limitation by just a little bit. I urged my brother to withdraw to keep it below, but he is stubbornly refusing so far. Has anyone out there ever witnessed or experienced an actual verification check and subsequent penalty for going over (that ridiculously low) amount? Please share if so.
Thanks for reading all this.