In the last post, I began writing about including care for your pet as part of your estate plan. One option for doing this is to establish a pet trust.
A pet trust is a type of trust established for the care of one or more animals that outlive their owners. Pet trusts are recognized in all fifty states, especially for the care of animals with longer life expectancies, such as turtles or birds, as well as for animals that are more expensive to care for.
Pet trusts will remain in effect for the duration of the pet’s life. If there are multiple pets, the pet trust will remain in effect until the passing of the last surviving pet. When establishing the trust, the owner has a number of important decisions to make, and the trust is able to be fully customized.