A Legal MinuteWill contests & capacity
Estate Plans That Prioritize Animals Over Family
The short answer
According to the speaker, including animals in an estate plan is typically very intentional. In one case she described, a person who hadn't spoken with their two estranged children in about 20 to 30 years created a trust specifically disinheriting them. It provided for their dogs and cats, then left the rest to animal charities.
From the full episode Real-Life Probate Horror Stories & Lessons Learned (20:29).
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Transcript
I have had a couple of those cases. Yes. And I will tell you, I really like those, because people, I like defending the trust. I don't like being on the side of the people challenging it, for a couple reasons. Typically, when people include their animals, it's very intentional. These people are extreme animal people.
The case that I'm thinking of specifically was this person had two estranged children, hadn't talked in like 20, 30 years, did a trust that said, I'm specifically disinheriting them, which you can do if the children are over 18, which obviously they were.
And they basically set up their trust to take care of their four dogs and three cats, and when they had all passed away, then the rest of the money was going to go to basically some charitable organizations that worked with animals.
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