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Revocable Living Trust
Legal/Rights§ 01 — Definition
A revocable living trust is a legal document that holds title to your assets while you are alive and directs where they go when you die, without passing through probate court. You retain full control: you can move assets in and out, amend the terms, or revoke it entirely, and it has no effect on your income taxes because the IRS still treats the assets as yours. Assets only avoid probate if the trust is actually FUNDED — deeds re-recorded, accounts retitled. An unfunded trust sitting in a binder does nothing. For a family with a disabled child, the critical detail is the beneficiary designation: the trust must name the child's special needs trust as beneficiary, never the child directly, and it must contain provisions preventing the Social Security Administration from finding the child in control of trust assets.
§ 02 — Why it matters for benefits
This is the document that keeps your estate out of probate and routes the inheritance into a special needs trust instead of into your child's name, where it would end their SSI and Medicaid eligibility. A living trust written without disability provisions can do the damage it was meant to prevent.
