Experts say owners should include furry friends in trusts

After Paula Eriksen’s husband died last year, she worried about what would happen to her loved ones when she dies. So she revised her will to make sure it covered everyone in the family. Even the pets.

Eriksen, 67, of Palm Harbor, Fla., added a clause leaving the care of her dogs, Jake and Casey, to the new “Care for Life” program at the Humane Society in Clearwater, Fla.

“My dogs are really the most important thing to me,” Eriksen said. “I’m assuming I’ll outlive them, but you don’t know.”

Eriksen is among an increasing number of people who are including their pets in their estate plans to make sure they are pampered even after their owners die.

It’s important to make such plans for your pets. If no arrangements are made, surviving family members often bring pets to an animal shelter where the pets’ prospects are bleak.

“People are very serious about their pets,” said Temple Terrace, Fla., lawyer Sue Walker, who said she always asks clients about their plans for their animals.

In settling an estate, pets are classified as untitled personal property, which puts them in the same category as clothing, jewelry and household furnishings. But deciding what to do with pets is a lot more complicated than leaving the family silver to a favorite niece.

Most people who make advance plans for their pets call on friends, neighbors or relatives, often people they already have named as beneficiaries of their estates.

Others make a written provision for their pets through wills and trusts, sometimes leaving the choice of a pet care provider to their personal representative or trustee.

It’s important to recognize that circumstances can change.

Margery and Fred Glickman of Miami, both 54, provided for their golden retriever, Cornflake, in a trust they had drawn up in the 1990s.

The Glickmans’ trust left Cornflake’s care to the same person who had agreed to be guardian for their three children.

“We put in wording that he should be kept as an inside dog,” Margery Glickman said. “We wanted him to have high-quality veterinary care and high-quality food. They could go back and ask the trustee for more money if we hadn’t provided sufficiently for his care.”

But the children grew up, Cornflake died and the Glickmans recently acquired a new dog, a mixed-breed named Bailey. Now they plan to draw up a new trust, giving extra money to the adult child who agrees to take Bailey.

The Humane Society suggests referring generically in your will to “any and all animals I may own at the time of my death.” Specific animals can be listed in a separate document that can be updated without a lawyer’s involvement whenever one animal dies or another is acquired.

Humane Society officials stress the importance of naming backups and of keeping in touch with designated caregivers to make sure their willingness to assume the role has not changed.

While finding an individual caretaker can be difficult, choosing an organization as caretaker may not be any easier. Some charge big fees. Often animals are kept in kennels, which can be a stressful environment for a pet accustomed to having the run of a house.

Also, money can be a thorny issue in estate planning for pets.

Giving someone a lump sum creates a conflict of interest because the less that’s spent on the pet, the more that’s left for the caretaker. On the other hand, a regular stipend has to be administered and creates potential problems of its own. Lawyers say they’ve heard of caretakers who kept payments coming by getting a look-alike replacement when an animal died.

Both animal activists and lawyers recommend leaving money for pet care, but not so much that you incite greed or give relatives grounds to claim you were mentally incompetent when you wrote your will.