Wealthy pet owners sometimes leave millions of dollars to their beloved animals through trusts. While this might seem absurd, these arrangements ensure that the pet is well-cared for after their owner’s death.
An estate plan lays out how you want your assets handled at your death or when you’re physically or mentally incapacitated. No wonder most people procrastinate creating one.
Appointing a guardian, establishing a pet trust and other ways to ensure your animals will be cared for.
Estate planning, once limited to human beneficiaries, has now extended to include beloved pets in order to provide for their well-being after the owner’s death.
When it comes to pets and estates, there are two main rules to understand.
Specialized pet trust law has developed because of the huge popularity of pets in this country, and the strong desire of pet owners to provide for their pets, even after the owner’s death.
Many well-off pet owners have left millions of dollars to their cats, dogs and even chickens—perhaps most notoriously Leona Helmsley, who left US$12 million when she died in 2007 to her white Maltese dog Trouble.
Based on a recent survey by the American Pet Products Association, as of 2020, 70% of households in the U.S. have pets—about 90.5 million households.
Many people already had pets before COVID-19, but a recent University of Michigan National Poll on Healthy Aging found as many as 10% of those individuals between ages 50 to 80 acquired a new pet between March 2020 and January 2021.
Eighty-five million families in the United States own at least one pet. That’s 68% of the population. How many of those owners have a plan for what would happen to their pet, if they themselves met with a crisis, had a lengthy hospitalization, or died?