A Will is a legal document that declares how you want your assets to be distributed after your death. In case there is no will, then the assets create more trouble than benefits for the family members as your family may have to fight a long legal battle to claim their rightful ownership on these assets.
One should never assume that after his death, his assets will automatically pass on to his loved ones. When there is no will, then the law decides the trustees, guardians and beneficiaries. A well drafted Will gives security that your assets pass on to your loved ones rightfully.
When you have a specially abled child, then it becomes of paramount importance that you have a properly drafted Will in place with your special child as beneficiary and also identifies trustees, guardians and caretakers. This will ensure that after you are no more, even then your special needs child is properly taken care of in terms of his medical needs, his day to day expenses and has a financially independent and respectable life.
Some important points to take care of while drafting a Will are as follows.
- If you have other children, other than the special needs child, then it becomes even more important to carefully plan wealth distribution.
- The nature of disability of your child should be clearly mentioned in the Will.
- The Will should also clearly mention that who will be the Guardian of your special child in your absence and in what capacity, this person will manage the affairs of the child.
- You can also appoint two persons, one’ Caretaker’ of the child who manages his/her personal affairs and another, ‘Guardian’ to manage the financial affairs of the child.
- There will be regular and occasional expenses for the maintenance of the child. Accordingly, the Will should clearly mention how and from where these expenses will be paid.