Estate Planning for Pets

It’s no surprise that Americans have doubled down on their love for pets in recent years. In fact, we’re on track to spend over $150 billion on our beloved companions in 2025; more than double what we spent back in 2015. As pet ownership and spending rise, it is also increasingly common to include provisions in estate plans to cover the re-homing, care, and maintenance of animals when their owners die.

You may recall stories of wealthy pet owners divvying their fortunes to pets rather than family members. After Leona Helmsley died in 2007, a judge famously prevented her estate from distributing $12 million to her Maltese Terrier, Trouble, limiting the final distribution to a pittance: $2 million. As pets become more entrenched in the American family, however, providing for their ongoing care in an estate plan is shifting from cause for sensational headlines toward a reasonable and often necessary planning tool.

Indecent as it may sound to those who consider pets as family, the law categorizes them as personal property. That has a few key ramifications when estate planning. First, pets can be directed to a particular beneficiary in your will or trust, giving owners some assurance of where Fido goes if he survives them. It also means you can’t make direct gifts to your animals in your documents. Instead, planning tends to focus on who will take the animal and, if desired, a cash gift to offset the costs of care.

Pet trusts can also be formed to hold a pool of assets with a trustee at the helm. That trustee will work with the pet caretaker, ensuring the trust resources are appropriately used to maintain your animals for the rest of their lives. This tool can be especially helpful to owners of particularly expensive and/or long-lived pets, reducing the burden on the chosen caretakers.

Your furry friends may have a well-earned spot in your estate plan. Whether it’s a simple line in your will directing your beloved hamster to a suitable home or a trust to provide for your stable of thoroughbreds, the estate planning attorneys at Wright Beamer are here to help! Contact us today at 248.477.6300.