Who here has a trust/will? Pets aspect, thank you!

[azstonie]

Hi HangersOuters:

My DH and I just wrapped up a 3-year nightmare of his late mother's estate. DH was executor, OMG the misery involved in that role.

And being in our 50s, we saw it was time to get our estate handled.

(I have no siblings and many of you here have read my posts about being in No Contact with my parents. My other relatives are deceased or out of touch since we became adults, so leaving money to relatives is not happening here. After the estate battle btw DH and his brother, my DH won't leave a penny to his brother.)

Our objective as of today is to provide for our two dogs if both DH and I were killed or somehow incapacitated at the same time. I have a friend who will take my two dogs. As both dogs are expensive to maintain, I plan to leave this friend my house and some cash. I want her to feel completely bonused for taking my dogs in. I've known her for 10 years, she is trustworthy and moral. The lawyer we saw pointed out that we should name a different entity for making decisions/handling money and insurance etc if we are incapacitated so our friend taking the dogs is not burdened with all of that, and I agree with him, don't want her life to be sucked up by monitoring and administering me and DH if we were in, say, a long term care facility etc.

So DH and I went to see a lawyer to get the trust started. Can anyone here offer advice about this, is there anything to beware of, anything to especially do? It looks like a trust and a will (the lawyer told us we will need a will in addition to the trust because we are essentially disinheriting my parents and my DH's brother) will cost btw $1500 and $2200 depending on how many meetings with the lawyer are necessary.

Who here with pets has handled how to ensure the pets are taken care of in the event of simultaneous death or incapacitation?

 

[Efe]

The way we handled ours was to name our one son as caretaker and to provide him an additional sum of money per animal. We were very specific that he had to take both dogs in order to get any of the money. We named each dog and made provision for any current animals we may have had at the time of our demise. We recently lost one of our dogs, so if we get another one in the future, we don't have to amend our Trust. We wanted to provide for them to be together and to be well taken care of.

Would you want your friend to still get your house if by then you had no animals? Maybe a specific dollar figure would be best? I'm sure your lawyer has told you this, but all of your assets, including the house, will have to be re-titled in the name of your trust. Our attorney handled our properties, and I handled the rest.

 

[azstonie]

The way we handled ours was to name our one son as caretaker and to provide him an additional sum of money per animal. We were very specific that he had to take both dogs in order to get any of the money. We named each dog and made provision for any current animals we may have had at the time of our demise. We recently lost one of our dogs, so if we get another one in the future, we don't have to amend our Trust. We wanted to provide for them to be together and to be well taken care of.

Would you want your friend to still get your house if by then you had no animals? Maybe a specific dollar figure would be best? I'm sure your lawyer has told you this, but all of your assets, including the house, will have to be re-titled in the name of your trust. Our attorney handled our properties, and I handled the rest.

Hi Effe, and thank you for your informative post. That's a good idea regarding future dogs/Trust amendments.

I could go either way on this friend. She and her DH are upside down on a house that is too small for them. Having our house to live in would be an upgrade for them and keep our dogs in their same house. But I cannot insist they move in to our house, that would not be fair or realistic. I think you're right, a super generous dollar amount to them. Proceeds from selling our house could go to her and her DH to care for our 2 dogs.

I will ask her if she would rather have the house and a yearly sum for the dogs OR a larger yearly sum (the house would be sold and the proceeds fund the yearly maintenance for the dogs).

I have an appointment with the lawyer at the end of this month, I will ask him how to provide for any future dogs. My one dog is 13, my avatar, Finn, and the other Westie, Maggie, is 7-1/2.

I'm not sure what you mean by "...I handled the rest." Do you mean you set up beneficiaries for things like bank accounts, insurance policies, etc.?

 

[momhappy]

I'm sorry if this is off-topic, but I was wondering how your older westie is doing health-wise?

 

[Efe]

Your little Finn is so sweet.

In order to save money on attorney fees, I did all the leg work with bank accounts, etc., whether being either titled in the trust, or transfer on death. Essentially, I made sure that everything was titled in a manner that would ensure there would be no probate. The other thing I forgot to mention is that I asked my attorney to draw up an abstract of the Trust. It is a two page document that details the Trust fundamentals, without the financial details. I used the abstract when I needed to give a copy to the bank, financial institution, etc. It meets their criteria, yet keeps our financial details private. Hope this helps.

 

[azstonie]

Oh, got it, Effe, and thank you for specifying the Abstract, those are specifically mentioned by the lawyer on his price sheet, but until you said why they are used, I was in the dark!!! Thank you!!

Hey momhappy, Finn is doing well, thank you He has done great with acupuncture for his musculoskeletal issues. I'm transitioning both Finn and Maggie to a home-prepared diet shortly, we are wrapping up a nasty episode of diarrhea (sorry ) that looks to be from colitis. He also just underwent workup for Cushing after a very high ALP on annual bloodwork, the test was equivocal but interpreted as negative by the vet. Finnie Boy swims in the pool every day

How are yours???

 

[momhappy]

My oldest dog is not doing so well. We are going to do some more tests soon to see if we can figure some things out. It sounds like yours are very lucky to have such a wonderful dog mommy!

 

[asscher_girl]

My DH and I set up a trust a few years ago. We have no children and won't be having any, but we do have 2 cats that are our babies We are in our 30's fyi. We used an estate attorney who was referred to us and he was great. I think the whole thing cost around $2500 or so. He did a will and trust for us. In regards to our cats, we have spelled out 2 options. 1 - my DH's aunt and uncle that live close to us, they also have no kids, but do have a few pets. We decided to compensate them nicely as well for taking the cats. 2 - if for some reason it doesn't work out with the aunt and uncle taking them, then the next choice is a cat retirement home... don't laugh, We contacted several organizations and found one we really like, so they would go there if need be.

Hope that helps, it does feel really good to get all of that done and organized, even if it's a little bit of work. But truly it's not too bad. You just have to change some accounts, house deeds, etc .to the name of your trust once it's finalized and then you're good to go.

 

[azstonie]

Asschergirl, thank you for posting, and thank you for the info re price, its always good to know you're not overpaying. I totally don't laff re kitty retirement home, we need them for doggies too dang it!!!!! I'm glad your sweet cats are taken care of like this.

I offered the Westie Foundation a $500k donation if they'd home my 2 Westies together if DH and I checked out at the same time, and they'd get that donation also if never needed to help our dogs. Never heard back from them. That was when I asked my friend.

 

[kgizo]

We have talked to two relatives to take our two dogs in such an event, and made it clear who is first choice and who is backup. Our animals are expensive too so we have a specified amount of $$ that whomever takes them will receive. We also let them know that in the event they can't take ours that they should go to a specified rescue group I am comfortable with, and not to another relative. Ours aren't bonded to each other so we specified they could be separated. We have 1-2 relatives we expect would want to take them, but we don't think our dogs would be happy in their households.

 

[azstonie]

Momhappy, I'm sorry to hear this about your dog. Sending him dust for good health!!!!

Dr Pitcairn's book on animal care, highly recommend it.

 

[azstonie]

Kgizo, thank you for responding. Yes, it's quite a process, figuring out guardians, isn't it. Glad you have this well in hand!

 

[zoebartlett]

My parents just went through this last spring. My uncle died after a brief illness and my parents took ownership of his dog. I know my uncle wanted family to keep the dog rather than bringing him to a shelter or rehoming him to someone we didn't know. I think it was just a verbal agreement between my parents and my uncle though. My husband and I agreed to share custody, so to speak, of the dog. We get him when they travel, and luckily for us, they travel frequently. I know my parents hired an estate attorney to deal with everything (my mom had been named executor), but I don't think the dog was considered part of the estate. I think it was more about the financial aspect of things. I could be wrong though - I'll check.

 

[asscher_girl]

No problem Azstonie! I agree, a sanity check on pricing is always a good thing to do. I'm sure there must be some doggie retirement homes somewhere, but if they are too far away logistics might be too much of a pain to deal with. We found several in SoCal (we're in NorCal but can't find any up here), one of the groups never replied to me either, very strange.