Bough

FOR FAMILIES IN CALIFORNIA & MASSACHUSETTS

A Special Needs Trust that protects SSI and Medicaid.

Expert-built and reviewed by a licensed attorney in your state — so a loved one can inherit without losing the benefits they rely on. $899. Two weeks.

  • Expert-built.
  • Attorney-reviewed.
  • State-specific.
  • Delivered in 2 weeks.

Four-week delivery guarantee — or deposit back, plus $200 for your time.

Read on

Three things every family deserves — that today's options can't quite deliver.

The attorney path

Specialty rates, generalist depth.

Most estate attorneys do careful work, but few have the depth in Special Needs Trust mechanics to match it. The billable-hour model is built to produce a document at a point in time — not to draft for the decades of funding changes, state-law shifts, and life stages the trust has to carry its beneficiary through.

The template path

A form that doesn't know your family.

LegalZoom-style templates handle the 80% that's identical across beneficiaries. The 20% that decides whether SSI and Medicaid stay intact — funding-source classification, SECURE Act stretch mechanics, ABLE coordination, state-specific payback rules — isn't in the form.

The chatbot path

A draft with no safety net.

A chatbot draft can feel convincing and still miss the specifics that matter. There's no attorney sign-off, no state-law scan, and no one on the other end when a distribution triggers an eligibility cascade your family can't afford.

More than paper. A Special Needs Trust drafted for the life it actually has to serve.

Bough drafts third-party Special Needs Trusts — the kind you set up for a loved one using your assets, so the trust can hold a lifetime's worth of care without ever counting against SSI or Medicaid. A document like that has to carry the beneficiary through decades of changing funding sources, state-law shifts, and life stages. Drafting it requires depth the billable-hour model doesn't scale to. That's the twenty percent Bough is built for: getting the document right, the first time, with the specifics your situation actually needs.

A trust worth a lifetime is drafted for all fifty years — not just the signing day.

What your trust actually has to get right:

  • Scope: Bough drafts third-party Special Needs Trusts — the kind you fund with your own assets for a loved one. We don't draft first-party (d4A) trusts funded with the beneficiary's assets, or pooled (d4C) trusts administered by a nonprofit. If your situation needs one of those, we flag it on the intake call and refund the deposit before the attorney starts.
  • Why the structure matters: a third-party trust has no Medicaid payback at the beneficiary's death — the remainder flows to whoever you named. A first-party d4A trust (42 U.S.C. § 1396p(d)(4)(A)) pays back Medicaid first, which changes the remainder math entirely. Pooled d4C trusts (§ 1396p(d)(4)(C)) require a nonprofit administrator, which doesn't fit a family-trustee setup.
  • Roth IRA bequests with see-through accumulation trust language, the SECURE Act 10-year payout rule, and the Eligible Designated Beneficiary lifetime stretch available to a disabled primary beneficiary.
  • In-kind support and maintenance under SSA POMS SI 00835 — which distribution provisions trigger the one-third SSI reduction, and which flow through cleanly.
  • ABLE account coordination — the $100,000 SSI countable threshold, the ABLE-to-Work earned-income provision, and the 529-to-ABLE rollover cap.
  • Succession and bonding provisions for the family member or close friend you name as trustee, plus duty-to-inform language — UTC § 813 in Massachusetts (M.G.L. ch. 203E § 813), California Probate Code § 16060 in California. The defaults differ; the document has to read to the state you're in, not to a generic template.
  • Medicaid estate recovery at the beneficiary's death. A third-party trust is not on the hook: the remainder flows to whoever you named — a sibling, a grandchild, a charity — not to the state. (A first-party trust is the opposite: Medicaid is repaid from remaining corpus before any remainder beneficiary, which is one of the main reasons we don't draft them.)
  • Distribution standards — HEMS, sole benefit, fully discretionary — and how each is scored under POMS SI 01120 for SSI and Medicaid eligibility.

If this sounds like your family

Reserve your spot — $200 deposit

How it works.

  1. Intake call with the founder (week 1)

    A 45-minute call to map your family, funding sources, your state, and the specific edge cases your trust has to cover. The human conversation that shapes everything downstream.

  2. Guided questionnaire (week 1)

    A secure, structured interview that captures every detail a template would miss. Go at your pace. The drafting engine assembles your trust against your state's statute, your funding sources, tax mechanics, and SSI and Medicaid rules as your answers come in.

  3. Attorney review & closing call (week 2)

    A licensed attorney in your state reviews every page and signs off. Then a closing call with the founder to walk through the final document, answer every question, and hand it over.

Think TurboTax for Special Needs Trust setup — a guided interview that captures your family's specifics, assembled by estate-planning experts and signed off by a licensed attorney in your state.

Ready to begin

Start your intake — $200 deposit
Shubhi, founder of Bough, at home.

A note from the founder.

My brother just turned 25. He has special needs, and my family has spent the last two decades trying to build a plan that actually fits him — not the generic version.

What we learned along the way: most estate attorneys do careful work, but few have the depth to get a Special Needs Trust right across the funding mechanics, state rules, and life-stage edge cases that decide whether it holds up for the next 50 years. The work lives between disciplines, and no one's built for it.

Bough is what I wish my parents had when they were starting. A Special Needs Trust drafted right the first time — with the depth the billable-hour model can't scale to.

— Shubhi, founder

Email the Founder

Work with me directly

Reserve your spot — $200 deposit

One price. No surprises.

$899 total

  • $200 non-refundable deposit today
  • $699 due when your attorney-reviewed draft arrives

Questions.

Who is Bough for?

Anyone setting up a Special Needs Trust for a loved one — a child, sibling, spouse, grandchild, or parent. If you're weighing a $3–5k attorney, a template service, or a chatbot draft, you're the reader.

Is Bough a law firm?

No. Bough is an estate-planning product that partners with licensed attorneys in your state. Every trust is reviewed and signed off by one of them before delivery. We're not your legal representation.

Which states do you work in?

California and Massachusetts, for now. A Special Needs Trust is genuinely state-specific — California uses the Probate Code (§ 15000 and following), Massachusetts uses the Uniform Trust Code (M.G.L. ch. 203E), and each state's Medicaid program reads trust language through its own case law. We've built deep panels in both. If you're elsewhere and want to be told when we open your state, send a note.

Does Bough handle first-party or pooled Special Needs Trusts?

No. Bough drafts third-party Special Needs Trusts only — the kind funded with assets that are not the beneficiary's. First-party (d4A) trusts are funded with the beneficiary's own assets (an inheritance, a personal-injury settlement, back pay) and require different drafting, Medicaid payback at death, and in California court approval under Probate Code § 3604. Pooled (d4C) trusts are administered by a nonprofit by definition. If your situation fits either, we'll flag it on the intake call and refund the deposit before it funds your attorney's intake.

How long does setting up a Special Needs Trust take?

Two weeks from deposit to signed trust. Week 1 is the founder intake call plus the guided questionnaire and drafting engine. Week 2 is attorney review and the closing call.

What's included in the $899?

A third-party Special Needs Trust drafted to California or Massachusetts law, reviewed and signed off by a licensed attorney in your state. Covers funding-source tax mechanics, SSI and Medicaid eligibility protections, ABLE coordination, and the edge cases (Roth IRA bequests under the SECURE Act, the $100k ABLE threshold, Qualified Disability Expenses, trustee duty-to-inform under your state's trust code) that template trusts miss.

What if I change my mind?

The $200 deposit is non-refundable because it funds your attorney's intake. If we don't deliver a finished trust within 4 weeks, we refund the deposit in full and send you $200 for your time.

Will the beneficiary still qualify for SSI and Medicaid?

Yes — that's the point. A properly-drafted Special Needs Trust holds assets for the beneficiary without counting toward the $2,000 SSI asset limit or Medicaid resource caps. This is the specific outcome the trust is engineered to protect.

Still reading? Good.

Reserve your spot — $200 deposit