Wiedner

FACTS AND PROCEDURAL HISTORY

1. The trust and conservatorship Roberta created her living trust in September 2002. She amended and restated it in March 2010, naming her sister Charlyne as the successor trustee. The main asset of the trust was a single-family residence. Roberta died on June 30, 2016. As successor trustee, Charlyne sold the property, which netted $335,847 to the trust on August 29, 2016. Roberta’s trust included—as a sub-trust—a “special needs trust”2 for the benefit of her adult son Daniel, who had

A special needs trust is a trust that is intended to allow the beneficiary to continue to maintain eligibility for certain needs-based government benefits. (Balian v. Balian (2009) 179 Cal.App.4th 1505, 1512.) Daniel’s needs-based government benefits were his monthly supplemental security income (SSI) and Medi-Cal benefits.

3 schizophrenia and developmental disabilities. The sub-trust was known as the “Daniel L. Black Special Needs Trust” (SNT). Charlyne is also the trustee for the SNT. Around April 2009, before Roberta died, Daniel was placed under an LPS conservatorship.3 His schizophrenia “made him ‘clinically unstable’ such that he was in and out of…