Minnesota Revocable Trust for a Pet
Even if you’ve set up things for your pets to live in your estate for the rest of their days, it’s wise to create a pet trust that provides for their needs.
This is no joke and is a serious part of estate planning law.
You can actually leave money to your beloved animals to help them live full lives. You can use this as a way to ensure that their way of life continues for quite some time.
Just as each pet has his/her own special needs, this kind of trust is rather customizable to help ensure that they’re well cared for. You can go into detail about their daily lives and help prepare them for a medical emergency.
They don’t need to like to go to the vet, but you still can put things in place in case they need extra medical attention. If you think this kind of trust sounds applicable to your pet, this article should serve as a good introduction.
Care for the Critters
As you might have guessed, a pet trust is mainly used to care for your pet. It’s a kind of trust fund that acts as a fail-safe to insure that they still are cared for. It’s somewhat like life insurance in that sense, but you leave the money to your pet rather than dealing with all of the insurance mumbo jumbo. That’s not to say that this should replace insurance.
Realize that this fund kind of fund, generally speaking, is meant to cover a recurring caregiver’s fee. It’s meant to help your pet get their daily needs and bread met. Moreover, by daily that doesn’t necessarily mean every day of the rest of their life.
There’s a regulation that varies from state to state that stops the trust fund once your pet has reached, for example, the ripe age of twenty-one years. Minnesota, as an example of a state that does pet trusts differently, will let the trust continue for up to ninety years. And no, those aren’t counted in dog years.
Costs to Consider
As far as what to budget for, you should set your attention on five areas. Boarding costs are potentially negotiable, but you may want to look into what it might cost as the caregiver might need to go out of town.
Grooming is another one that’s relatively relative. That is, as long as your pooch, kitty, or bearded dragon is physically healthy.
The three big areas that you need to consider are food, vet checkups, and emergency care. The first is self-explanatory and should provide some extra spending money for treats for when (wo)man’s best friend has been a good boy/girl.
The last two parts should not be linked. Err on the side that regular checkups will be vital to your pet’s health. Similarly, assume that an emergency will happen and that your cat will be thankful for saving one of its nine lives.
Lost and Found
Though you may not assume anyone will want to take advantage of your pet trust, it will only help your pet in the long run to leave a vivid description of your pet inside of your will.
You want to discuss things which help identify your pet such as breed, skin color, fur color, eye color, and potentially any recognizable physical traits. This is one of the best things that you can do to help your pet get their inheritance.
Talking parrots aside, your pet probably doesn’t have a way to speak human language. For legal purposes, that means they can’t file a legal complaint or consult your lawyer. It’s hypothetically possible that a lawyer could bring up maltreatment in a court case if they were made aware of it.
The major concern here is that there needs to be some kind of guideline to make sure that if concerns are brought up, someone can figure out what pet you created the trust for. The money should go to the pet that it rightfully belongs to.
It’s A Pet’s Life
Besides describing how cute your pet is and detailing a complete budget, make sure you leave plenty of care concerning their daily life. You may want to assume that their living standard will need to be as good (if not better) once you’re no longer able to care for them.
They’ll probably want to eat the same amount of food and maybe need a few extra treats to help them cope with the loss of their human mommy/daddy. They still need to be cared for.
Perhaps the worst thing that you can do is assume that the person you’re entrusting your pet to automatically knows everything about your pet or that they’ll remember everything you taught them.
It’s better to leave notes than not to. It doesn’t matter whether or not they’ve cared for the pet more than you. It’s just a good way to make sure that they know what you know. Consider consulting your vet or people that you can trust to make sure that you have everything in order.
Making the Revocable Trust
For you to create a trust for your pet, you should consult a lawyer who’s well versed in estate planning law. You can reach one at 612-424-0398 or by visiting the law firm of Flanders Law Firm LLC.
Help can be provided to assist you in crafting and perfecting your will and your trusts. Whether you have more questions surrounding topics such as elder law or how to set up trusts for other things you care about, you should be able to find the answer here. Don’t worry about your pet’s safety and well-being.
Use your time wisely and take advantage of a trust to help them live a happy and healthy life.
Sources:
https://www.aspca.org/pet-care/pet-planning/pet-trust-primer
