MSU Law Faculty in the News
Alabama adopts code that allows humans to assure pets are cared for
June 22, 2008
The Birmingham News
By Kathy Seale
Perhaps, unlike the late Leona Helmsley, you won't leave a $12 million trust fund for your dog.
Then you won't have to worry about a judge reducing that trust by $10 million (which is what a Manhattan judge did April 30, although it didn't become public until this week).
You might want to think about leaving a trust for your pet, though, which would ensure money and a designated caretaker should you become ill, disabled, or, like Mrs. Helmsley, no longer with us.
Last year, Alabama adopted a code that allows a trust to be created to provide for the care of an animal that is alive during a settlor's lifetime. (The settlor is the creator of the trust.)
"That is happening with some regularity now," says David Favre, editor of the Animal Legal and Historical Web Center at Michigan State University College of Law. Similar pet trusts have been enacted in more than 30 states.
A trust is a legally sanctioned arrangement providing for the care of companion animals in the event of an owner's disability or death. A trust designates a trustee for the pet's money and usually designates a caretaker for the pet and includes instructions for the pet's care.
"If you set up a trust, it just kind of forces you to sit down and organize and think through," says Laura Ireland Moore, executive director of the National Center for Animal Law and a professor at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Ore. "If something unfortunate happens, who will take them? How are they fed? Who is their veterinarian? What is their day-to-day routine?"
A trust differs from a will in that, should you become unable to care for your pet, the designated trustee can use trust money to care for your pet. A pet trust is enforceable by the courts, too, but the courts cannot enforce provisions for the care of your pet in a will.
"If you want to put aside money to help care for your animal, a trust is really the only way to proceed," Favre says.
Trusts can be particularly important if you have pets such as horses or parrots, Moore says. "It's common for them to outlive their people."
A trust could be as simple as a document downloaded from the Internet, through Web sites such as www.petguardian.com or www.peaceofmindpettrust.com, although legal advice is usually recommended.
"We advise people, in any situation that involves money, to consult a lawyer," says Marc Beaumont, a vice-president of New South Federal Savings in Birmingham. New South encompasses the Internet bank www.UmbrellaBank.com, which offers a pet trust savings account called Pet Trust Plus, which includes downloadable trust forms.
But if you do, like Helmsley, leave an unreasonable amount of money in trust for your pet, the court can intervene.
"Somebody that's ridiculous, the law can take care of that," Favre says.