Estate Planning For Pets
When updating your estate plan, don’t forget ways to support your other special family members—your pets.
Roughly 65% of U.S. households own a pet and these companions are often as cherished as children by many.
In the same way we should prepare to provide for our heirs, it makes sense to account for pets in our estate plans. Including pets in your estate plan can help you ensure that they will receive the care they need for the rest of their lives—and can give you, as a pet owner, some peace of mind. It will also eliminate unwanted confusion and complications for your family.
Meet with friends and family
The first step in planning for the pet’s future is to determine who should take care of them upon the owner’s death or incapacity. Discussing this with family or close friends will help you decide on the best candidate for a caregiver. Be up front about expectations, and beware of choosing someone who seems hesitant to do the job. Not everyone is up for the day-to-day responsibilities of taking care of an animal, financially or otherwise, so it’s important to make sure that the person chosen has given his or her clear consent.
Once a caregiver has been identified, a plan should be put in place that specifies what should happen to pets in the days immediately following the death of the owner. During this difficult time, there should be no confusion about where the pets will be staying, what food and medicine they need, and other basic questions.
Consider a pet trust
To make sure that pets continue to receive the necessary care for the rest of their lives, consider formalizing an agreement.
Your Will is not the best legal option for this task as it is subject to probate and the process involved in having the county surrogate court name the executor. So there is an obvious timing problem here between the days or weeks it may take for your executor to be named and the more immediate need for your pet to be walked or fed. Who is responsible for the pet’s well-being during this time period?
A pet trust is generally a much stronger option to consider. A pet trust is a legally binding arrangement that generally provides for the care of pets should the owner become incapable of caring for them. It lets the pet owner set up regular payments to the chosen caregiver that covers the expenses of taking care of the pets.
If you don’t want to create unwanted financial burden to a friend or family member, then creating a pet trust is a responsible and courteous thing to do. Some animals, like parrots, can live to be 100, and can create an extensive, and expensive, responsibility.
Setting up a pet trust is much like setting up any other kind of trust. The owner decides how much money to put into it, chooses a trustee to oversee these assets, and lays out instructions for the use of the money—in this case, detailing how it should be used to care for the pets. These instructions can include such details as the amount and kinds of food the pets should have, their medical needs, even their daily exercise routines. You can even designate different people as trustee and caregiver in order to eliminate potential conflicts of interest.
When a pet trust is created, the owner also decides what happens to any money left in it after the pet dies. The remainder beneficiary can be the caregiver, an animal care institution or another organization.
A third option is a pet protection agreement, which includes all the benefits of a pet trust, but also requires a signature from the pet guardian to ensure that he or she is aware of the agreement and willing to care for the pet in question. The pet protection agreement is also enforceable during the owner’s lifetime—for example, if the pet owner is hospitalized or otherwise become unable to care for their pet.
Taking the first steps
Pet trust laws differ from state to state, but most pet trusts will continue for the life of the pet or 21 years, whichever comes first. You can check out https://www.aspca.org/pet-care/pet-planning/pet-trust-laws for info on pet trust laws across the U.S. to help you get started.
Next, set up appointments with your attorney and financial advisor to discuss making your pets a part of your estate plan.
Pet trusts may seem a novelty given that it’s still typical for a family member to take care of a pet after we’re gone. However, if you don’t have close friends or family members nearby — or have pets that are expensive or difficult to take of—that’s when a pet provision typically comes into play as part of the estate planning process.
Checklist: Estate planning that includes your pets
Including pets in an estate plan can be a relatively straightforward process. Consider taking the four following steps in consultation with an attorney and financial advisor:
- Select the pets’ guardian. Be sure that the person chosen has given his or her clear consent.
- Write detailed instructions for the pets’ care. This information may be especially useful immediately following the death of the owner.
- Formalize plans in a pet trust or pet protection agreement. These legally binding agreements can provide for the care of your pets when the owner is incapable of caring for them.
- Select a remainder beneficiary. This person or organization will receive any funds left in the trust after the pets die.
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