SSI Eligibility

• To be eligible for SSI, you must be age 65 or older, blind or disabled. In addition, you must be a U.S. resident, or a resident of a U.S. territory, and not leave the country for more than a calendar month or 30 days. Additionally, you cannot own assets in your own name worth more than $2,000 total. If you are married, you and your spouse cannot own more than $3,000 in assets between you.
  
  

Asset Exemptions

• The Social Security Administration exempts certain kinds of assets from their eligibility calculations. This means that these assets do not count against you for the purposes of determining eligibility for SSI payments. Exempt assets include your home and the land it is on, burial spaces for yourself and your family, up to $1,500 in burial funds, up to $1,500 in life insurance, household goods and effects, one car, regardless of value, and grants, scholarships and gifts to pay for educational expenses for nine months after you receive the money.
  
  

Special Needs Trusts

• Depending on the circumstances, you may be able to maintain your eligibility for SSI by establishing a special needs trust. This is a legal entity that is designed to own and hold property on your behalf, so that you do not take personal ownership of the assets and risk rendering yourself ineligible for benefits. This is a specialized area of financial planning. Speak to an attorney about whether it may make sense to set one up for you.
  
  

Revocable Versus Irrevocable Trusts

• Not just any trust will do. In order to maintain your eligibility for benefits, any trust must be irrevocable. That is, you must not have any control over the assets within the trust, and you must not be able to dissolve the trust. Instead, a trustee would be appointed to control the assets for your benefit, with the purpose of maintaining the assets, and not disbursing so much at one time that your eligibility for benefits is jeopardized.