Attorney James Jones: [00:00:00] Your pets give you unconditional love, but what happens to them when you’re gone in Washington? A Pet Trust can ensure that your furry friends are cared for just the way you want. Stick around to learn how to protect your pet’s future, avoid legal pitfalls, and create a legacy to keep their tails wagging.
You are listening to the legacy talk podcast hosted by James A. Jones, attorney at law and founder of Sound Legacy Law, PLLC in Tacoma. Attorney Jones is here to talk about how to best protect your family assets, and well, pulling stories from his more than 20 years of helping families and business owners protect their assets, create their estate plans, preserve their wealth, and plan for the future.
Nobody wants to think about estate planning, but life has a way of sneaking up on you. And at any moment, something unexpected could happen that will leave you regretting not having acted sooner. So join attorney James A. Jones in the Legacy [00:01:00] Talk podcast and together learn how to plan for your future today and have peace of mind tomorrow.
Attorney James Jones: Welcome to Legacy Talk. I am your host, James Jones. On today’s episode, we’re talking about pets and estate planning, securing your furry friend’s future. You know, in today’s world, pets are cherished companions. They’ve, I think they’ve always been, to some degree.
In the old days, there were a lot of them were working dogs or working animals, right? I. But today we have these little dogs, and they’re all doodles or whatever. They’re, they’re cats or doodles, I don’t know. But they are our cherished companions. But what happens to them if we’re not around? Right?
They’re gonna love us, like they’ll love us, but when we’re gone, they’re so sad. Right? When they’re gone, we’re sad. Right? Today, we’re going to explore how you can use PetTrust to ensure that your dog, cats, or even parrots. What [00:02:00] about turtles? Could you include turtles? They last a long time.
Tortoises. Let’s make sure that they’re cared for after their passing. We’re diving into Washington’s Pet Trust laws, practical steps to set one up, and some common pitfalls to avoid, which will give you some action to take to protect your pets as part of your estate plan. So let’s get started.
Why does Pet Trust matter? Okay, under Washington Law, pets are property, tangible, personal property. They’re chattels, right? They’re non-title assets. They’re not heirs to your estate. So, without a plan, they may be re-homed or neglected after your passing. And in Washington alone, over 1.5 million dogs and cats are owned in Washington, which highlights the need for pet-focused estate planning.
There’s a lot of pets here and a lot of families. The majority of families, I think, have a pet. So, do 00:03:00 we consider our pets as part of our estate plan? A Pet Trust is one way to do it. A Pet Trust ensures that your pet’s care aligns with your values, from daily routines to medical needs and comfort, as far as where they’re gonna live.
You know, do they get a nice grassy field to run in? Those kinds of things. So, Washington State, what is a Pet Trust? James, what is a Pet Trust? Man, I’ve never heard of this thing. Washington State permits. Enforceable Pet Trusts. Okay. To provide for animal care. So that’s one thing. They provide for animal care after the owner’s death or incapacity with clear legal guidelines.
Okay? These trusts, which are created by you, either through a will or another trust, or you can even create it during your lifetime. These trusts can specify a caregiver for the pets, someone that they’ll live with. Outline care standards like. They eat this kind of diet, they go to this veterinarian, they go this much, this often, and allocate [00:04:00] funds for those expenses, right?
Because who’s, if you’re gonna say, Hey Bobby, will you take my dog if I die? Bobby will say, Yeah, sure. What if this dog has major medical issues? You gotta provide for those. Really? You should ’cause Bobby’s gonna be frustrated and you don’t want Bobby putting that dog down, right? You want someone to love and help this dog or cat.
And so you wanna set up a Pet Trust, which is easy to do, how to set it up. Great segue. How do we set up a Pet Trust in Washington? Now, when you’re setting up a trust, there’s three parties to a trust. There’s someone that’s called a grand tour or trust tour that sets it up. There’s a trustee who manages the trust, and then there’s a beneficiary who benefits from the trust, like gets the stuff right? So you wanna designate, you would be the grantor when you set this thing up, right? You setting fees, trust up. Whether you set it up through your will or through a revocable trust or similar, you’re setting it up. You’re the grantor. The trustee is the one that’s in charge.
They’re the one that makes sure 00:05:00 that the money goes out the way you want it to. For the pets. You want to designate a trusted caregiver. That trustee is sometimes the caregiver, sometimes they’re not. Sometimes the trustee just manages the money. And funnels it out to the caregiver, then they can even be the person that picks the caregiver if you can’t find one or if there’s nobody left, right.
But a trusted caregiver and usually an alternate can ensure that this plan of care is continued when you’re not around and when you have a trust. So you’ve got the three parties, the grantor, trustee, and beneficiary, you’ve also have to have an asset. So you’ve gotta fund this thing with money. Yeah, usually like you’re not putting the dog toys in there.
I guess you could say all the dog’s toys into the Pet Trust. You don’t have to say that. I don’t think anybody’s gonna want those except for your dog. Like my dog has got, one of my dogs, at least Marigold, has two babies. She’s got a regular baby that’s like a cow that squeaks, and then she’s got a monkey baby, which is a 00:06:00 monkey.
With long arm floppy arms, and it squeaks, too, and she carries ’em around and has a little playtime with them. She’d really miss those if she didn’t have ’em. But you don’t have to do a specific request, but you could maybe we say make sure Marigold’s babies go with her if we’re not around, ’cause she really loves playing with her babies.
And she pretends they’re her kids, and she cries, and it’s very odd. I’m not sure. It’s pretty cute, but it’s, it’s kinda odd. Anyway, you wanna fund this dress with money, not just toys. And you wanna fund it realistically, right? How much does it cost a year to take care of your dog? Think about how much it costs to feed them, how much it costs to take ’em to the vet, how much it costs to take them to grooming. I’ve got Australian labradoodles. They’re very fluffy girls, and they’re not cheap to groom, but they’re so sweet that you have to brush ’em and make sure that they’re groomed nicely. So they look cute, right? And I think everybody that has a dog or a cat. Wants to do the same thing for them, right?
We wanna make sure that they look nice, and then so, so the point of that is you probably don’t want to [00:07:00] or need to put a hundred thousand dollars in there, right? If it’s a couple thousand a year, I don’t know. With grooming and vet visits, it’s gonna be more than a couple thousand, I would think, depending on what kind of animals you’ve got.
So you really want to do the math on that. Like, how much do we pay for vet visits, how much do I pay a month for food? How much do I pay a month, or however often you groom them? If you groom them somewhere professionally, maybe you would need to assume that if you groom your dogs yourself, which many people do, or you just bathe them because they don’t need to be cut, then the new caretaker might wanna or might prefer to groom them and not bathe them and do it themselves.
So you probably wanna make sure that there’s money in there for that. And then once the dogs pass away, ’cause or animals, I keep saying dogs because I’m a dog person, but people have cats that they love. Okay. Or turtles or parrots, and parrots last forever. So you really have to worry about them. Turtles too.
Anyway. Name a remainder beneficiary. [00:08:00] Okay. The animals don’t live forever. They have a much shorter lifespan than humans. Unless you’re like a tortoise and some parrots. Oddly enough, right? So, make sure you have a remainder beneficiary. That could be a family member, that could be a charity, you know, that could be the local animal shelter in your town, or the Humane Society, or whatever.
It’s right. I now, once you create a Pet Trust, typically a Pet Trust, in my experience. I’m just trying to think back. I’ve never created a Pet Trust on its own. Okay? A Pet Trust is always created, at least the ones that I do regularly are created through a will or a trust. Okay? So you create the trust or you write your will that says, Hey, when I die, give X amount of money to this trust to take care of my pets.
Okay? And you’ll coordinate that with your will or revocable trust to avoid conflicts. Make sure that the distribution is seamless and simple. And you wanna make sure that when you do this, that you’re working with someone that knows what they’re doing? I’m not [00:09:00] sure that you’re gonna get it on your own.
Okay. And I’m not sure that you’re gonna get that kind of planning through an online resource. Okay. So what happens if you don’t wanna do a Pet Trust? Like, I don’t wanna add a Pet Trust. It is not that it’s that much more expensive, really, I don’t typically even charge that much extra. If it, if at all extra for a Pet Trust, then I would, you know, a trust for a child, you know?
’cause these pets are our children in many cases, right? Some alternatives to a Pet Trust are doing something informal, right? Like, say, Hey Bobby, like asking Bobby, Hey, take my dog if I’m not around. The problem with that is they don’t have any legal enforceability. And they don’t have any money behind them typically.
Some people say, Well, give whoever takes my dog 5,000 bucks. You can do that, but if you put it in trust, it’s gonna be protected, and it’s only gonna be used for the dog if you just give ’em 5,000 bucks. They might not use it for the dog, and they might go on vacation or something, right, and give the dog away or put him down, that would be [00:10:00] bad, but it’s possible.
There are some nonprofit programs and shelters that take animals that you don’t have anybody to give them to. They can be named in the will to take animals, and a lot of the time, there’s like for specialty animals like pigs or like pigs that live in the house. I know I’ve had clients with those or other kinds of animals that are not like dogs or cats.
That might take them and have sort of a little ranch or something where these pigs or tortoises or whatever can run free. Okay. If you do make a provision in your will, like I have said, there’s not the detail that they need and especially for long living animals such as parrots, which we don’t talk enough about.
I don’t have a parrot. I don’t know that I want a parrot. They’re very loud. My brother had a cockatiel when we were kids, and that cockatiel sang very well, but it sang a lot and so it can be loud. So, some common mistakes to think about and avoid. [00:11:00] As with any estate plan, you wanna make sure that the thing is updated, and with pets, make sure you update it when you get new pets or if you have old pets that have passed away.
One thing that I usually recommend is because dogs and cats, and other than turtles and parrots, sometimes, okay, I’m not gonna have to make this disclaimer forever, do I have to make it? We’ll see anyway. If it’s a dog or a cat, for example, they’ll probably die before you unless you’re really old, right?
And so you may replace that dog or cat with another dog or cat or parrot. Okay. And so you wanna make sure, typically when I create a Pet Trust for a client, I say, all my pets are beneficiaries of this Pet Trust, regardless of whether they’re alive now, or I get them later. Okay. Then you don’t have to go updating it every time you get a new dog or a cat or a turtle.[00:12:00]
Okay. Another thing to worry about is, especially if there’s health issues like we mentioned. Don’t forget to put in specific care instructions, right? Make sure that the care described as, Hey, make sure this is reasonable and keeps my pet healthy and happy, ’cause they’re so friendly, okay? Usually, there’s really no tax implications for this, so don’t worry about that.
If it’s a big issue, if you got a taxable state, there might be issues there. That’s not an issue for Pet Trusts. Okay? You know, I’ve done a lot of Pet Trust, I do a lot of Pet Trust, like, I don’t know, several years, many a year. You know, more than several. And it is because people love their animals. And so some clients of mine, I had a little lady many years ago who didn’t have any family really, but she had cats.
And she wanted to make sure that they were taken care of, and she had a really good friend that was willing to take them. And so she created a Pet Trust that funded their care for many years. You know, we figured out how long the, how old the cats were, and 00:13:00 how much it costs per year to run their lives, right?
To maintain their care. And we put that much money in there, and then anything left went to her friend. Right. Thanks for helping me, you know, thanks for loving my pets. Okay. And so. That made it so much easier for her to know that her pets were taken care of when she was gone, so she didn’t have to worry about it.
Right. That’s just, in many cases, these pets are our children. Right. Especially if you don’t have biological children. Many people that don’t have children have pets. Many people that have children have pets, and they’re just as much a part of family as their children are. I know that my two dogs, Rosie and Marigold.
Who are the sweetest girls are definitely part of our family, especially since half my kids are, I don’t know, like 80% of my kids left. They’re all out of the house, and so the dogs run the house with my youngest kid. They’re the ones we’re talking to all the time, right? They’re the ones that get the most attention in our household, and so maybe I need to do a [00:14:00] Pet Trust.
I don’t have a Pet Trust personally. I just assume my dogs will be going with my kids. Maybe you shouldn’t assume that. So that’s a good point, James. What if we just want our kids to take care of the dogs and cats, and we’re not even thinking about a Pet Trust? Well, maybe you should. I just have this epiphany.
Maybe I should have a Pet Trust for my dogs to make sure that they’re taken care of, and who’s gonna be in charge of ’em? I guess I’d have to talk to my kids and see who would want to talk to these dogs. Problem is my kids are still. Not settled. They’re all college students. Anyway, I digress. That’s it for today’s episode on Pet Trust and ensuring their future for our furry friends.
Okay, come back next week for another great episode on incapacity planning. Preparing for the unexpected in Washington. Super important topic, incapacity planning. What happens if you can’t make a decision, but you’re still around? What happens if you don’t plan for problems? Okay, so come back next week.
Listen to that. I’d like to [00:15:00] thank you for listening to today’s episode of Legacy Talk. If you’d like today’s episode, would like to learn more. Please like and subscribe for more great content. I’ve been your host, James Jones, to your legacy.
Thank you for listening to the Legacy Talk podcast by attorney James A. Jones. If you found today’s episode helpful, we ask that you like and follow us on all major platforms so you don’t miss out on the latest episode. If you have questions for Attorney Jones, reach out at info@joneslegacylaw.com or visit our website at joneslegacylaw.com.
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