“The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated,” said Mahatma Gandhi.
These are great days indeed for Duke in Darien or Trouble, late of Greenwich and now happily living the seaside life in Sarasota, Fla.
Under a new law promoted by state Sen. Toni Boucher of Wilton and enacted last October, pet owners in Connecticut can create legally enforceable trusts to benefit their animals after their master”™s deaths. Trusts and estates attorneys with Day Pitney L.L.P. say they have seen activity in that area since, with the law clarifying bequeathals to pets amid Connecticut”™s complex trust and gifts laws.
There has been a recent surge of public interest in pet trusts following the deaths of famous individuals with significant provisions in their wills or trusts for the benefit of their animals, according to Gerry Beyer, a professor at Texas Tech University School of Law who has written a series of papers on pet trust laws nationally.
Locally, the most jaw-dropping case was the $12 million hotelier Leona Helmsley bequeathed to her Maltese dog Trouble, but there have been several high-profile cases over the years.
While academics have unearthed estate gifts for the care of animals dating to 1889 in England, U.S. judges had a mixed record in the past century in approving such trusts, according to Beyer, with some rejecting pet trusts on grounds they were unenforceable due to the lack of any person to enforce it.
Attorneys easily skirted that rule by bequeathing the trust fund to an individual who agreed to carry out the benefactor”™s wishes via a legal arrangement, Beyer said, but those of modest assets still had to absorb added expense in setting up such an arrangement.
In 1990, the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws added to its model statutes a pet trust with a 21-year sunset, and case law has since been mostly clarified as Connecticut and some other states have added statutes to the books.
Wisconsin is the lone state with an “honorary” trust under which the estate executor can choose not to carry out the wishes of the benefactor.
Beyer now is making a case for Congress to amend the Internal Revenue Code to make it easier to account for pet trusts for taxation purposes.
As attorneys with Day Pitney point out, that can vary widely ”“ horses, for instance, have relatively lengthy lifetimes and significant expenses compared to a pet canary. Day Pitney adds that has created problems in New York, where a similar law has a 21-year sunset after an owner”™s death, which some pets like horses, primates and exotic birds can outlive.
In Connecticut under the new law, pet trust funds can only be used for the animal”™s care, and a probate judge can reduce the size of the trust if the balance is more than necessary to fulfill the animal”™s needs.
Beyer also cautions owners against willing unreasonably large amounts of money or property to a pet trust, on grounds it might encourage other heirs to contest the will in court. As it turns out, that was the case with Trouble, after a judge reduced the dog”™s award to $2 million and redistributed the rest to other, human heirs.
Still, not a bad take for a Maltese girl.
“As baby boomers continue to retire, many of them pet owners who treat their pets as family members, practitioners should add ”˜pet planning”™ to their list of estate planning services,” Beyer said. “Ms. Helmsley”™s attorney did, and Trouble sure is thankful.”
