Estate Planning for Pets Featured in San Francisco Chronicle

The following is based on Judy Richter, When Your Pets Are Your Heirs [titled online as Owners encouraged to care for pets’ future in estate planning], San Francisco Chron., Dec. 15, 2007, at F1.

Leona Helmsley and many other less affluent pet owners make arrangements for their pets’ care after their death.

Colleen McAvoy, a San Mateo attorney who specializes in estate planning, proposes the following options for estate planning for pets:

• Leaving a pet to a designated beneficiary and listing alternates to that person
• Naming someone to inherit the pet and naming a trustee to administer money held in a pet trust
• Naming the pet’s new owner as the beneficiary of a trust and requiring the trustee to give the owner money from the trust as long as the owner cares for the pet
• Leaving the pet to an animal care group

Special thanks to Joel Dobris (Professor of Law, UC Davis School of Law) for bringing this article to my attention.

For more information about pet trusts and related matters, see Estate Planning for Pet Owners.