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Providing for Pets
in Estate Plans
By Robert
Blizard
Thought lately
about the issue of providing for pets in your clients’ estate plans? Not
likely. Seldom does the subject of estate planning professionals helping
their pet-owning clients to appropriately provide for companion animals in
wills receive in-depth news coverage, or even cocktail party discussion.
Because the bonds between people and their pets are usually so great,
giving some attention to this issue can provide peace of mind for both
attorney and client.
The Humane Society
of the United States (HSUS) encourages both estate planning professionals
and laypeople to carefully consider the ramifications resulting from a
failure to adequately provide for animal friends in the event that the
owners predecease their pets and then move forward to take the necessary
actions to ensure their companions’ safety, care and smooth transition to
a new home.
All too often,
people assume that they will survive their beloved pets and/or that a
friend, relative or neighbor who once verbally promised in the past to
care for their pet in the event of the owner’s death or disability is
still willing or able to add a new animal to their household. Meanwhile,
employees of local animal shelters – those who spend every day on the
front lines of our country’s pet-overpopulation crisis – frequently see
the unintended consequences of people’s failure to provide appropriately
for their pets in their wills and/or to ascertain fully that daughter
Susie, nephew Bob or Mr. and Mrs. Jones from across the street indeed
truly wanted a new companion animal in their household. Or even if they
had promised in the past to accept the animal in the event of the owner’s
death, their current living situations – a new household member with
allergies, a new lease that does not permit pets, etc. – may prevent them
from fulfilling a promise made before their living circumstances changed.
Even those folks
who have conscientiously provided for their pets in their wills may have
neglected to consider a trust and/or powers of attorney for the care of
their companion animal in the event of severe disability, when a will
would not even be read because death had not yet occurred. Similarly,
people who take their role as caregiver seriously may not know where to
turn for advice on planning for their pet in estate documents.
To educate and
motivate both estate planning professionals and pet owners, the HSUS’s
Office of Major and Planned Gifts now offers its new free kit: “Providing
for Your Pet’s Future Without You,” complete with a six-page fact sheet,
wallet alert cards, emergency decals for windows and doors, and caregiver
information forms.
The fact sheet
includes sample pet-care language for estate-planning documents. For
example, the sample language for wills stipulates that all pets must be
evaluated by a veterinarian before being placed with new caregivers. It
provides instructions for pets that are not in good health. It also
includes language allowing for expenses associated with the care,
placement and transportation of pets to be paid by the estate.
The fact sheet also
discusses the differences between wills, trusts and powers of attorney and
the potential impact on a pet’s care by using these tools. Additional
guidance is provided for individuals who consider entrusting their pet to
an organization for long-term care or who may be considering euthanasia
for the pet upon the caregiver’s death.
The fact sheet is
available online at
www.hsus.org/petsinwills. Also, the HSUS offers the fact sheet
(though not the entire kit) in Spanish. To order a free copy of the full
kit in English or our Spanish-language fact sheet, please call HSUS Humane
Legacy Manager Patricia Kauffman at (301) 258-3130, or send an e-mail
humanelegacy@hsus.org.
Please contact the HSUS as soon as possible to help your clients provide
in the best manner possible for those non-human family members for whom
they care so much.
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