Leaving Money to a Disabled Child

Updated August 4, 2026. Quick answer: if your child receives SSI, leaving them money outright in your will can end it. The countable-resource limit is $2,000 for an individual — and because SSI eligibility usually carries Medicaid with it, a well-meant inheritance can cost far more than it delivers. There are three ways to leave them the money without that happening, and one of them is free.

The number, and how long it has stood there

An individual (or couple) with countable resources in excess of the statutory limit is not eligible for Federal SSI or federally-administered State supplementary payments.

— POMS SI 01110.003 A.1

The statutory limits are $2,000 for a single individual and $3,000 for an individual with a spouse. SSA’s own manual then adds the line that explains why so many families are caught out by this:

The statutory limits have not changed since 1/1/89.

— POMS SI 01110.003 A.2, effective 17 December 2024

Thirty-seven years. The figure was set when a first-class stamp cost 25 cents, and it has not moved since. That is why a modest legacy — a few thousand pounds’ worth of savings bonds, a share of a house, the residue of a small estate — can be enough to break eligibility outright.

One small mercy is in the same manual: where countable resources exceed the limit by $50 or less, waiver provisions may apply to the resulting overpayment. That is a $50 cushion on a $2,000 line, not a margin to plan around.

What is actually at risk

• The SSI payment itself, for as long as the resources sit above the line.
• Medicaid, which in most states rides on SSI eligibility — and for an adult with significant support needs, Medicaid is usually worth far more per year than the inheritance.
• The waiver services that Medicaid eligibility unlocks, which frequently have waiting lists measured in years. Losing a place is not the same as pausing it.

This is the arithmetic that makes an outright gift a bad deal: you can hand over $30,000 and cost the same person $60,000 a year in services they then have to spend the $30,000 replacing.

Three routes that do not do this

None of these requires disinheriting anyone. That is the misconception worth killing first — the choice is not “leave them money or don’t”, it is “leave it directly or leave it in a way the resource test does not count”.

• A third-party special needs trust. Money that was never the child’s goes into a trust for their benefit and is not a countable resource. The difference between this and a trust funded with the child’s own money is large and it matters — first-party versus third-party is the distinction to get right.
• An ABLE account. Simpler and cheaper than a trust, with its own limits, and since 2026 open to a far wider group — disability onset before age 46 now qualifies.
• Both. They are not alternatives and most families who need one need the other — why an ABLE account and a trust do different jobs.

The mistakes that happen in the will itself

• “Equal shares to my children”. The most common way this goes wrong. It is one clause, it looks fair, and it hands a disabled child a countable resource on the day you die.
• Leaving their share to a sibling “to look after them”. That money is then the sibling’s — exposed to the sibling’s divorce, creditors and death, and with no enforceable obligation behind it. It is a handshake dressed as a plan.
• Naming the child on a beneficiary form. A life-insurance policy or a retirement account passes outside the will and lands directly on them, whatever the will says.
• Doing the trust and forgetting the forms. A perfectly drafted trust does nothing if the accounts still name the child directly.
• Grandparents. A grandparent’s will can undo the whole plan without anyone realising there was a plan. It is worth the conversation.

If money has already arrived

An inheritance that has landed is not automatically a disaster, but the clock is short and the options narrow quickly — a first-party trust and an ABLE account both have roles here, and a disclaimer may be available if nothing has been accepted yet. This is the point to get real advice rather than read another page: the free routes are a legal aid office, a state protection-and-advocacy organisation, or a law school clinic, and they exist precisely for this.

Related

The two vehicles compared: ABLE account versus special needs trust. Whose money funded it, and why that changes everything: first-party versus third-party. The 2026 eligibility change: ABLE accounts and disability onset before 46. If a retirement account is the asset: the disabled and chronically ill beneficiary rules run on their own timetable.

Honest gaps

We have not published the countable-resource rules themselves — what counts, what is excluded, the home and one vehicle, the deeming rules for a child under 18 — and they decide real cases. Nor have we covered state supplementary payments, which vary, or the states where Medicaid eligibility does not follow SSI automatically. The $2,000 and $3,000 figures are federal statutory limits read from SSA’s manual today; nothing here is a determination of anyone’s eligibility, which only SSA makes.

General information drawn from SSA’s Program Operations Manual System, not legal or benefits advice. Eligibility turns on facts this page cannot see. We sell nothing on this page and earn nothing from it — this is the kind of decision that deserves a lawyer who does it every day.