However, even if your state does not have a pet trust law, your clients still can provide nicely for their pets. Gerry W. Beyer, professor of law at St. Mary's University School of Law in San Antonio, Tex., suggests that you can set up an even better arrangement without a pet trust law. He advocates a "conditional gift in trust," created under standard trust law.
Under his system, you're leaving the gift in trust for a person-not the animal, he says. Your client would make a conditional gift to the pet's caretaker. The condition under which the caretaker gets benefits is that he or she takes care of the pet. Meanwhile, the trustee is different from the person receiving the benefits. The trustee ensures that the caretaker is taking proper care of the money. "I even recommend that the trustee arrange for surprise visits," he says. The remainder beneficiary is different from the person taking care of the animal.
Such a system, while more costly than a standard pet trust agreement, he says, imposes checks and balances. No one person is apt to abscond with your client's trust money. Plus, it can provide great detail for the animal's care.
"That could work," says Lawrence Waggoner, professor of law at University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, of Beyer's concept. In 1990, Waggoner helped draft the uniform probate code of the National Conference of Commissioners of Uniform State Laws. The code provided the initial model for pet trust laws nationally.
However, Waggoner says he is unaware of any case law that supports Beyer's concept. With a pet trust law, he says, "because you've got a statute that tells you exactly what you have to do and what you can do, there can be no question about validity." Regardless of whether your client sets up some type of trust to care for an animal, an increasing array of programs nationwide offer to provide for pets after their owners are gone.
Charlotte Alexander, president of the North County Humane Society in Atascadero, Calif., says her group just followed an example set by other animal organizations. If her humane society is left some amount of money in a will, it will provide temporary shelter for the animal after its owner dies.
"You have to enroll in the program," explains Alexander, co-author of the book, "When Your Pet Outlives You; Protecting Animal Companions After You Die (NewSage Press)." "We get a lot of information: What kinds of medications is the pet on? What kind of situation does it like to live in? Does a cat get along with dogs? We take in the animals until a good home can be found."
Humane societies and nonprofit animal organizations often aren't geared to take animals for life. However, there are pet retirement homes, life care centers and sanctuaries. "Some are for-profit," Alexander says. "You can leave your animals, and they will take care of them for life."
Beyer says that the best such facilities are university veterinary schools. Top of the line, he says, is the Stevenson Companion Animal Life-Care Center at Texas A&M University's College of Veterinary Medicine, College Station, Texas. The program requires an endowment and, in some cases, an enrollment fee.
"Most veterinary schools are set up where the students will take care of animals as part of a scholarship or tuition," Alexander said. "Mostly, they are very expensive."