Animal Trust
Pet “Retirement” Home
Yes, Oklahoma allows you to establish a Trust now or in your estate planning documents to support and care for your animals. This is a good option when there is larger number of pets (but this certainly can be done for only one animal) or where there is a sufficient amount of money. If this is one of your primary desires – the future care of your animals – you should investigate the Pet Trust. Now you cannot name the animal(s) as the direct named beneficiaries of the Trust – this causes the trust to be void. But just like you were establishing a trust for minor children, you can set up the trust with a caretaker/guardian/trustee and instruct the trustee how and when to distribute the funds for the care of your pets.
For certain people and certain pets, a viable alternative is a pet retirement home. If you have sufficient funds and you want to be certain that there will be someone there to help with your animals (or your animals have special needs), this alternative can give you great peace of mind. This option requires advanced planning and a reservation fee is usually required while you are still alive to assure that they will accept your pet when you are deceased. OSU offers such a program and it is called the Cohn Pet Care Facility. It was built as a permanent home for animals whose owners planned in advance to ensure their beloved pets would be cared for in the owner’s absence. The reservation/endowment paid up front secures the funds necessary to provide shelter, food and veterinary care for the life of your The hard questions are: pet. There are other such facilities around the country and new ones appearing each year. Just be sure to do • How much money to fund the trust? your homework to verify that the facility is sufficiently • What happens to the money when the animals funded so that it will still be in business when the need die? (This can create a conflict of interest if the arises. caretaker gets the money that is left once the pets die). The above options are summaries only and other • How explicit do you get with the instructions of questions pertaining to each need to be discussed. But how to care for the animals? if you are one of the millions of people with pets as a • Do you want to leave instructions for the final member of your family, you should spend some time disposition of the pet upon its death? (Pet with an estate planning professional to discuss these Cemeteries and Crematories are in most major options. Having some plan in place is better than no plan cities. Tulsa has more than one.) and it could mean the difference of knowing that your • Should the trustee be given the power to name pet will have a new home should something happen to a new caregiver if the primary and successor you versus the possibility of an untimely euthanization caregivers named in the trust fail? of a healthy pet. Just as with trusts for human beneficiaries, trusts for animals can be established during the pet owner’s life or by Will after the pet owner dies. The benefit of having the trust established during your life and in place is that you become disabled or must move into a care facility that does not allow pets, everything that is needed for your pets to be cared for is already in place. You can even appoint a person or entity to be a trust advisor or otherwise have “standing” to question how the trust is being administered or how the pets are being cared for.
D. Faith Orlowski July 28, 1954 - November 8, 2020 A tireless advocate for all animals.
Article originally provided to the Tulsa SPCA by Faith Orlowski. www.tulsaspca.org. Reprinted with permission.
“Animals are sentient, intelligent, perceptive, funny and entertaining. We owe them a duty of care as we do to children.” ~ Michael Morpurgo, author of the children's book War Horse, Private Peaceful and The Amazing Story of Adolphus Tips
