When pet owners die, their morning greeters and fur babies are treated as personal property under state and federal law.
Few pet owners understand the risks their animals could face, absent the proper paperwork: pets may be neglected and unfed, taken to a shelter, or worse, abandoned.
For this reason, please provide for the care of pets when completing estate planning.
Include the care of your pets in your will or trust to help ensure they’ll be cared for after you’re gone
A clause in your trust, or a standalone pet trust, can help protect your animals and possibly assure placement. Charities can help, particularly if you are making a gift donation as part of the request to place your animals. In choosing which documents to use to express your intent, do not rely on a will alone. Attorneys say only a trust can help assure prompt response to an animal’s needs (wills may need to be probated, and the probate process can take time. In the interim, the animal must be cared for).
Some people name a caretaker to care for their animals and leave money for this purpose. However, without oversight by a licensed fiduciary, as may be provided by a trust, the caretaker may accept the gift and still surrender the animals to a shelter. The fiduciary can oversee an investment account to ensure that the financial advisor is generating the income and growth necessary to help pay costs for the animals placed. A pet trust document is necessary to open the investment account.
People choosing a caretaker route need to leave enough of a gift to address legacy care needs, including often-expensive vet bills. Attorney Michael Menlove of Prescott Valley says it’s best not to rely on unwritten promises for animal care after death.
Under Arizona law, pet trusts can last up to 21 years. Life insurance proceeds may be used if the pet trust, rather than the animal, is named as a beneficiary. Money invested for an animal’s care can be paid to the caretaker via a licensed fiduciary. Any unused sum can be distributed to the trust’s human heirs. If you are considering using life insurance, please apply for it before your age or health constraints make the policy’s purchase cost-prohibitive.
Alternatively, check with local nonprofits caring for animals. For instance, the Yavapai Humane Society in Prescott, Arizona, offers a Pet Guardianship Program covering dogs, cats and horses. Forms completed before the owner’s death can help assure that new homes will be found for pets. Keep in mind that some charities limit the age of the animal needing rehoming, so it is important to check in advance with the charity you may be choosing.
In other urban areas, local humane societies offer similar programs but these usually do not also cover horses. In that case, identifying a large animal sanctuary will be your best bet, but check with the individual sanctuary about their requirements.
United Animal Friends in Prescott also helps place animals and provides instructions in the Planned Giving Guidelines on their website (https://unitedanimalfriends.org/donate/).
Like most animal rescue charities providing this service, United Animal Friends wants a copy of the first page and the relevant pet provision of a trust or the entire separate pet trust, along with the following information:
· The name and contact information for your trustee
· The name of the pet’s veterinarian and location of the pet’s medical records
They keep this info with an enrollment form for each pet, as part of a permanent record on file, should the need arise.
