“You can’t leave your pets money, but you can still give them a good life,” Betsy Simmons Hannibal writes in nolo.com. How? In your estate plan, you can arrange for your pet to go to a caring person or a pet care organization, plus provide the financial resources needed to provide ongoing care.
Even before the death of an owner, of course, the need might arise for emergency caregiving of a pet, and a plan should be in pace for a friend or family member armed with feeding and care instructions, a key to the home, and contact information for the vet, the Best Friends Animal Society reminds owners.
Since, at Geyer Law, our work as estate planning attorneys is dedicated to helping clients provide for those who have been important in their lives, we know that list of “heirs” quite often includes beloved pets. The funding for the caretaking of pets can be provided in the form of a direct bequest of the pet itself to a nonprofit sanctuary or take the form of a pet trust.
“Ensuring their care”, of course, means taking a realistic view of both today’s costs of owning and caring for a pet and allowing for inflation in future years.”Pet ownership is a long-term investment with many different costs, Shannon Perry of Betterpet .com cautions.
Our attorneys at Rebecca W. Geyer & Associates urge owners to consider several factors in deciding how much money to assign to a pet trust in their estate plan:
- the type of animal and its life expectancy
- the “standard of living” they envision for the pet
- what the backup plan is if the caretaker falls ill or dies
In some cases, pet owners might choose to “over-fund” the trust, so that leftover money can then go towards a local animal shelter, Kansas attorneys Larson Brown point out.
Here at Geyer Law, we remind clients of one very practical aspect of planning for pets and that is including in all instructions and in all documents the micro-chip unique ID number of the pet, which stories owner’s contact information in a national registry and provides the pet with an impossible-to-lose, tamper-proof ID.
Your beloved pets – you can’t leave ’em money, but you can ensure they’re cared for!
– by Ronnie of the Rebecca W. Geyer blog team
