Thursday, January 6, 2011

Trusts and Estates

In the course of my normal day-job, I was researching various types of special trusts.  One of the ones that I stumbled upon, unrelated to what I was actually working on, was a special pet trust - that is, setting up a fund, and at least one trustee, to look after your pets' welfare in the case of your death, in addition to a caretaker, who would be overseen by the trustees.   Now, I don't know about you, but I do not have the money to set aside into a trust fund for my animals, as much as I might like to.  So I'm not sure that the whole trust idea would work for me.

But it did make me start to think.  What WOULD happen to our animals if something, God forbid, were to happen to both my husband and I?

I've heard far, far too many sad stories about animals at the shelter,  in which a cat or dog wound up homeless because their owner died or had to be put into institutionalized care, and relatives didn't want the animal.

And that may well be what happened to me - there might be a couple of select family members that would take in one or two of my animals out of respect for me, and one would probably happily take in ONE of the cats, but other than that, I don't know that any of them would want or need the added responsibility.

Argos is taken care of, of that much I am certain.  Steel City Greyhounds would take him back and then rehome him.  He would never be deprived of care, and I am certain would find a loving home again.

It's the cats that I am concerned for.  (And yes, I realize that if the cats outlive us, our deaths would be VERY untimely, but it does happen.)  I'm at a loss.  Most, if not all, of the cat people that I know are "full up" meaning that they all have four or five cats already.  They would be insane to want to add to that number.

So what measures have you taken to make sure that your pet is cared for after your death?  Any wisdom, thoughts, suggestions to impart to me?

And...  speaking of the unfortunate need to rehome pets, I know of two kitties - sisters - six years old, who are in desperate need of a home.  Friends are trying to place them directly so that they do not have to go to the shelter and compete with kittens for adopters.  Does anyone know ANYONE within a reasonable distance of Pittsburgh, PA, that might consider taking them in?  They do not have any "bad habits" that I know of, and I know that one of them is even a lap-kitty, once she gets to know you!

5 comments:

  1. It's a discussion that we need to have again here at our house. We had a bit of a plan before, but now that Morgan is here, it needs to be reworked. It's definitely a thing that you need to think about before it happens!

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  2. Like you, we here don't have funds to set aside in a trust; but we've planned the best we could. Verifying with friends and relatives, who would be willing to take in which pets, and then putting it into the will. And backups for backups - you just never know!

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  3. Mom has the same thoughts sometimes. She is thinking about maybe taking out some sort of policy that would set aside monies to care for us. She knows some of us would be an easy set up, but that Princess Crankypants would be a tough sell....

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  4. You know, I'm kind of suprised at myself for not thinking of this before. What if my husband and I were in a car accident and both of us were killed? What would happen to our pets at home? Our family all live on the other side of the country. If they wanted to take them, and I think my in-laws might, it wouldn't be easy for them. Where would they go before they could get here? Who would look after them?

    I have a lot of thinking and talking to do. Thanks for this vital reminder!

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  5. Hi! We just started our own blog recently, and we're going around trying to meet other bloggy pets. Our Mama has thought about that too. She lives with Gramma and Grampa right now, and the good thing is, if she or one of them died, there would be two more to take care of us... but if they ALL died, we wouldn't know WHAT to do! Our Gramma has a lot of pet-loving friends at work, some of whom volunteer at the shelter where Trixie came from, so hopefully they would help us!

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