Updated August 27, 2026. Quick answer: South Carolina states a timing rule that decides whether a month is covered: “Eligibility cannot be established prior to the month the trust document is signed”. There is no back-dating an income trust in South Carolina. The state also removes a common assumption about cost — “It is not required to use an attorney, but you may do so if you wish.”
What South Carolina requires
| What the state sets out | What it says |
|---|---|
| South Carolina’s name for it | Income Trust |
| The form | DHHS Form 905 (January 2026) |
| Earliest month of eligibility | “Eligibility cannot be established prior to the month the trust document is signed” |
| What the trust does | “Income that flows through the Income Trust does not count toward the Medicaid Cap but is used to pay toward the cost of their Long-Term Care Services.” |
| Do you need a lawyer? | “It is not required to use an attorney, but you may do so if you wish.” |
| Who checks it | “The South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services must review the completed trust document to ensure it meets legal criteria.” |
How it works in practice
- The signing date is the deadline that matters: “Eligibility cannot be established prior to the month the trust document is signed”. Every day of delay in signing is potentially a month of care paid privately, which is why the state’s own instruction is to complete the document as soon as possible.
- The attorney question is answered directly — “It is not required to use an attorney, but you may do so if you wish.” The state supplies the documents; using a lawyer is a choice about complexity, not a requirement.
- The trust does not make income disappear. “Income that flows through the Income Trust does not count toward the Medicaid Cap but is used to pay toward the cost of their Long-Term Care Services.” It moves the money out of the eligibility test and into the cost of care.
The mechanism itself — why an income cap exists and what the trust must contain — is explained on the income-cap and Miller trust page. This page is the South Carolina record.
What this page does not settle
- There is a state review step: “The South Carolina Department of Health and Human Services must review the completed trust document to ensure it meets legal criteria.” A signed document is the start of the process rather than the end of it.
- This page reads one source: South Carolina DHHS, Form 905 — Income Trust. It is the state’s own publication on this rule, but no state puts its whole treatment of excess income in a single document, and a detail that decides your case may sit in one this page did not read.
- A trust fixes an income problem and nothing else. The asset test, the level-of-care test and the transfer-of-assets look-back are separate hurdles, each decided on your own file, and meeting this rule does not clear any of them.
- Every quotation here was read against the source on August 27, 2026. States revise these rules, and a figure or a section number can move without the page around it changing. Open the source before you rely on a detail.
Eligibility is decided by the state agency on the whole file, not by one rule on one page. Nothing here is legal advice, and no one should move, retitle or assign income on the strength of a web page.
Sources
The source above was retrieved and read against the state text on August 27, 2026. Every quotation on this page was checked against those bytes.
Related: South Carolina’s Medicaid home equity limit for a single applicant with no spouse or dependent child at home.
Related: South Carolina’s Medicaid Personal Needs Allowance; the amount a nursing-facility resident keeps from their own income each month.