If a homeowner stops paying their property taxes and the county forecloses on the home, what happens to the excess funds from the sale? Common sense might lead you to say that of course any excess funds would go to the homeowner, but that isn’t always the case. The Supreme Court of the United States (SCOTUS) recently heard oral arguments in a case where the county kept the proceeds from the sale for itself.

A pooled trust is also known as a d4C trust because it is authorized by US Code 1396p(d)(4)(C). It is established and managed by a non-profit organization and is funded by the individual with special needs, for that individual’s sole benefit. An individual’s pooled trust is a subaccount within a master trust, a collection of other individual trusts. The managing entity oversees the collective individual accounts within the pool as a whole. A pooled trust entity will have its own joinder agreement; the terms of the trust are controlled by the entity.

The Medicaid Asset Protection Trust (MAPT) is a powerful tool used in elder law planning. The MAPT can be used both in a proactive planning case or in a crisis planning case. Let’s take a look at when the MAPT would be used in each type of case, and how a MAPT intersects with estate tax, gift tax, and income tax.