The Laws of your Money with Ann-Margaret Episode 21

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The following is a paid podcast. iHeartRadio's hosting of this
podcast constitutes neither an endorsement of the products offered or
the ideas expressed. The following program is sponsored by New
York Priority Medical Care. Now it's time for the Laws
of Your Money, a weekly call in show with legal
tips to help you protect your money. Here's your host

(00:23):
and Margaret Carosa.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Hello and welcome to the Laws of your Money. This
is a program dedicated to protecting you from legal and
financial mayhem. When it comes to personal finance, there is
nothing more important than protecting yourself legally. What does it

(00:47):
matter how brilliantly I save and invest if there's a
forty percent chance of losing assets to a long term
illness and expensive breakup taxes This could be a state taxes,
capital gains taxes, not to mention ordinary lawsuits. We know

(01:10):
we're living in a very litigious society, but it comes
as a surprise to people that we are more likely
to be involved in a legal action with a former
loved one than with a stranger. I believe we all
have legal landmines in our lives. Are you concerned about

(01:35):
an elderly relative losing their home to a nursing home.
Are you in a second marriage? Thinking about the prospect
of blended family warfare later? These are all of the
issues that we dig into. I am asset protection attorney
and Margaret Carosa, joined today by my esteemed colleague, the

(01:59):
Reverend Paul slat Guts. Welcome to the program.

Speaker 3 (02:02):
Paul, Hello Anne.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
So I before we jump in today, I encourage all
of you to join the conversation by calling one eight
hundred three to one zero seventy ten with questions comments
about the collisions between loved ones and finances. Today we're

(02:27):
gonna switch gears a little bit and instead of talking
about the laws of your money, we're going to focus
on the laws of your pets. Do you know that
seventy percent of Americans have a furry loved one in

(02:50):
their homes? I do know that, But you're not one
of them.

Speaker 3 (02:54):
No, I'm not one of them. But my wife loves cats,
but does she and dogs?

Speaker 2 (02:59):
And I do too.

Speaker 3 (02:59):
But it's a big responsibility. But obviously you know, maybe
seventy million people are worthy of that responsibility.

Speaker 2 (03:08):
Well, yeah, you know, we need to think about, you know, first,
legal liability when we have a pet, especially a dog,
And unfortunately, I have first hand experience about liability and dogs.

(03:29):
I had the occasion a number of years ago to
go to a rescue organization and saw a cute little
puppy and rescued said cute little puppy and get it home.
And you know, people said that the dog was possessed

(03:52):
by the devil. There were times where I thought the
dog was the devil. This dog was the most destructive
animal I have ever encountered. She ripped a gutter off
of the house, She chewed through the kitchen floor, she

(04:14):
ripped wallpaper off of the walls. She I mean, it
was just unspeakable. And if all of that wasn't enough,
she bit people. So my kids would have friends come
over and they would try to pet her and the

(04:36):
dog would bite them. So this was Lucky. She was
really the Tasmanian devil. And we you know, developed workarounds,
so we had to obviously keep her contained in her
special room where you could hear her bouncing off of

(04:59):
the walls when company was over. But she liked women.
She didn't like strange men, and she didn't like children.
So if a lady came over, then then Lucky could
be out, you know, but once a year, the joke

(05:20):
was unlucky because I would dress her up in a
Halloween costume. And yes, I am that person that that
dresses the dogs up in Halloween costumes. And if you
go onto my Instagram today, I put a tribute picture
of Lucky in her big brother Rocky, who's my yellow lab.

(05:42):
And Lucky was wonder Woman every Halloween. So it was
kind of funny because she was she was not a
cute dog and like she was skinny, her eyes are
bulging out of her head, and she was mean and snowing.
But once a year she was in a wonder Woman

(06:03):
costume with a little gold skirt at my lawyer And
go on to Instagram and you can see little Lucky.

Speaker 3 (06:12):
But even with all of that, you still loved Lucky
enough to take care of them? Well, I mean you did?
Are you kidding me?

Speaker 2 (06:19):
People? You know what I learned from Lucky. I really
had to fight and my my better angels prevailed. And
what I learned from my eleven year relationship with Lucky
years eleven years. I survived eleven years with Lucky. What

(06:45):
I learned from Lucky and this is no joke that
the creatures that are hardest to love need love the most,
and Lucky and I develop and understanding. I think it
helped in later years where you know, she was not

(07:06):
physically able to be quite as destructive, and the Lucky
saga ended. She just died one night, you know, as
we all will. But the night before she died, she
must have known because she took her little head and

(07:29):
put it on my leg in a very affectionate gesture.
And I thought to myself, son of a bee, you know,
she's making me fall in love with her at the
eleventh hour. But you know, folks out there who have
lost a pet, you know that it is an absolute heartbreak,

(07:51):
and in many cases it is a tougher loss than
you losing a human being, you know, because these little animals,
you know, have have no agenda and they just rely
on us for everything. So I just I want to

(08:14):
give a shout out to someone who makes this period
easier for pet parents who are grappling with the very
painful loss of a pet. And if you know someone
who has lost a pet and you're really wondering what

(08:37):
to do for them, I strongly encourage you to check
out my friend Ava Kestenbaum's website. She is a professional
artist and if you send her a photo of your pet,
she will paint a beautiful portrait. And it is uh

(09:01):
the perfect gift for someone who has lost a pet.
It's just such a wonderful gesture. The website is painting
fur keeps dot com, so fur is spelled f as
in Frank, you are painting for keeps dot com. If

(09:21):
you're driving and you can't write that down, please reach
out to me during the week and I will give
you that website. I encourage everyone go on the website.
There are absolutely beautiful portraits of animals, and again, you're
really helping someone get over a heartache.

Speaker 3 (09:43):
I've done a pet funeral.

Speaker 2 (09:45):
You did as an interfaith minister? Oh?

Speaker 3 (09:48):
As a yeah, as a minister for our mutual friend Greg.

Speaker 2 (09:51):
Oh oh what was that dog's name?

Speaker 3 (09:56):
Oh boy, some years ago?

Speaker 2 (09:57):
Yeah, I remember that dog. Love that dog, and he
would carry the dog when the dog couldn't walk anymore.
All right, Greg, if you're listening, call uh. Okay before
we end this piece of it. The liability anyone who

(10:18):
has a pet needs to check their homeowners or renters
insurance policy. Are you covered for dog bites to guests
at your home. And a lot of insurance companies have exclusions.

(10:39):
They have so called dangerous breed exclusions, So you want
to familiarize yourself with the limits of the insurance. And obviously,
as a general matter, none of us should rely one
hundred percent on life insurance for liability protection. If we

(11:00):
have a home, we want to think about insulating ourselves
from liability by doing what.

Speaker 3 (11:07):
Paul will a trust.

Speaker 2 (11:11):
Putting the home in a trust, which, if it's properly drafted,
will provide some liability protection.

Speaker 3 (11:21):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (11:21):
Yeah, let's move to what do you think, Paul, are
the benefits of pet ownership, specifically for senior citizens, companionship. Companionship,
maybe a little bit of a security protection. You know.

(11:42):
I have this big yellow lab now he maybe he's
ten years old. His joints are starting to hurt. He
is the most beautiful dog I have ever seen. But
he is also the missed dog. He may be the

(12:03):
dumbest dog. No really, you have to meet him, the
dumbest the dumbest dog in the United States. But he
is absolutely a treasure. And yeah, he sounds ferocious. So
when a car pulls up, he sounds like he's gonna

(12:25):
rip someone's head off. So I feel more secure in
my home having this dog barking his full head off.
So I think that for seniors it provides companionship hopefully
some crime deterrence. And my husband, who is a geriatrician,

(12:48):
says that having an animal forces someone to stay mentally
sharp because they have to remember to feed it and
take care of it. But I find that there are
seniors who don't adopt or buy a pet because they

(13:09):
are afraid that they will outlive the pet, and they
feel it's unfair to the pet to perhaps you know,
leave it stranded. So I encourage, you know, anyone who
is putting off getting a pet because you're concerned you
will outlive the pet, you simply have to do some planning. Right.

(13:33):
With some good planning in place, your furry loved one
will have a smooth transition. Now, when we think about
pets and the estate plan, what's the story that comes
to people's minds? Do you remember this? Years ago? Leon

(13:55):
Leona Helmsley her will left twelve million dollars to her
Maltese named Trouble, and the mistake I think was because
that ended up being contested by family members, and the
surrogate's court judge ended up reducing that amount to two million. Now,

(14:24):
the mistake there as an estate planning attorney is that,
you know, you might ask how is a judge able
to involve themselves and unilaterally make a change in your will?
And the answer is, the will goes to probate. So

(14:45):
the judge can, you know, put his or her finger
on the scales of equity as he or she sees
it and make changes to the plan. So, anyone who
wants to provide for a furry loved one within your
estate plan, you definitely want to avoid probate. Now, the

(15:07):
laws of all fifty states allow us to create a
pet trust, and in New York, the pet trust allows
us to name an individual who is referred to as
the pet care appointee, and this person is charged not

(15:34):
necessarily with taking the pet to come live with them,
but the person is charged with overseeing the proper placement
of the pet and doing periodic wellness checks on the
pet to make sure that the vet care is up

(15:54):
to date and grooming is up to date, on and
on and on. We can really flesh out within the
plan how our pet will be situated if they do
survive us.

Speaker 3 (16:10):
Is this part of a trust overall? You know, this
sort of unusual.

Speaker 2 (16:15):
Yeah, well that's a good question. You can do. Most
people do this pet care appointee provision within the terms
of their will. But what's the problem with that? The
overall will has to go to probate. So I encourage
people to do a stand alone pet care appointee trust.

(16:39):
You don't have to put any money in it. You
can put a ceremonial ten dollars in it. But because
it is created now and has its own tax ID number,
now this little pet trust can be a recognized beneficiary
on your life and insurance, your bank account, your four

(17:02):
to oh one K. So if you really want to
make sure that your pets care will continue uninterrupted in
the event of your death, you want to consider a
pet trust. You cannot just wing it and say, you know,
Susie is She's agreed to take care of the pets.

(17:25):
So I'm going to leave some money to Susie under
my will and she knows what I want to happen.
And in the book Love and Money, I tell the
story of Leanna and Tina, two sisters never married. They
had five cats, and they knew that the survivor of

(17:47):
the two of them would of course continue to take
care of the cats. But what happened. Tina died first.
Leanna is living with the five cats, and she developed
dementia and estranged niece came out of the woodwork and
filed a guardianship proceeding in some states we call it

(18:12):
a conservatorship, and the niece was appointed the guardian of
ant Lianna. And what did she do with aunt Leanna
put her in a nursing home and the cats were
all taken to the ASPCA. Right, this is not the
result that Leanna and Tina would have wanted. And I

(18:36):
encourage all pet parents to develop a relationship with folks
who are of a similar mindset. And when you're choosing
your pet care appointee and the trust, you have two options.
To compensate the pet care appointee, say that they get

(19:02):
X dollars per year for each year of life of
the pet. But what is the danger there? If they're
motivated by money, they may not admit when the pet
actually dies. And I've seen, you know, kind of like
a weekend at Bernie's scenario where they replace the hamster,

(19:25):
the canary, the goldfish, the cat. The other option is
to say that you pull or the pet care appoint
and you're going to take care of this pet. We're
going to put a certain amount of money aside, and
at the death of the pet, you get everything that's left. Okay,

(19:48):
what's the danger there? Well, I'll tell I'll illustrate what
the danger there is. And this is a true story.
A woman on the Upper West Side, one of your neighbors,
one of your neighbors, with a duplex condo. You can
only imagine what that was worth. She left the duplex

(20:12):
condo in a pet cara pointee trust. Her nephew Fred
was the pet cara pointe. She had seven cats who
were to continue to live in the beautiful apartment and
at the end of the life of the last cat, cousin,
Fred was to inherit the apartment. All of the cats

(20:38):
died within eighteen months.

Speaker 3 (20:43):
Is a sad story.

Speaker 2 (20:44):
Yeah, no, it's a sad story. And you know, the
chances that they were all natural deaths is I think
very slim, very slim. So you want to really make
sure that the pet care is an animal lover. So

(21:04):
I recommend that everyone develop a relationship with a trusted
pet not for profit. And you know, here a lot
of people think, Okay, I'm going to go with the ASPCA,
and that's great. It's a wonderful organization. But if you're

(21:28):
thinking about making charitable gifts to a pet organization, the
ASPCA is so big that you're not really going to
see the benefit of your little annual gifts. On the
other side of the spectrum, you have, you know, the
lady around the block who's running this informal cat sanctuary.

(21:53):
You can't really count on that because she may or
may not be there in the year of death, or
if it's a a little ragtag organization, there can be
infighting and it's just a very unstable situation. So, like
Goldilocks and the Three Bears, you want to be somewhere
in between. And there's an organization that I cannot recommend

(22:17):
highly enough and it's called Second Chance Rescue And you
can go onto their website NYC second Chance Rescue dot
org and you can see all of the little furry
future family members that are looking for a lovely home.

(22:40):
And if, like you, Paul, you're not one hundred percent
committed to taking the plunge and actually adopting a forever friend.
You know what you can do. You can do well, yeah,
you can make a donation to Second Chance Rescue dot org.

(23:02):
Or you can do a weekend foster program so instead
of you know, the animal being in the shelter for
the entire weekend, they would go to uh Paul's fancy
apartment on the Upper West Side and keep you guys

(23:22):
company there. So really wonderful organization co founded by my
family friend Lisa Blanco. Check out the organization and you know,
it's really to become part of a community with other
animal lovers and you develop relationships where you can appoint

(23:46):
each other as your pet care appointees.

Speaker 3 (23:50):
Two things. One thing. First thing is my wife a
good part of the day loves to watch pet videos.
Oh cats.

Speaker 2 (23:58):
You know that's proof she's a good person.

Speaker 3 (24:01):
Paul baby sits forgets sometimes and if you want to
really have it's like America's Funniest videos. I mean those
are just such such joy. But I want to ask you,
though a legal question, because you've talked specifically of a
trust for a pet situation, you suggest not to put

(24:22):
it in an overall trust. I mean you need different trusts,
or you have one trust and you can put these
and wise things within.

Speaker 2 (24:30):
You know what, there are countless different types of trusts,
and you know again, I want to change the conversation
from who gets what upon my death to how do
they get it? So you have your overall trust and
let's think of it like Lego snap on building blocks.

(24:54):
Upon my death, I want Mary, Susie, Johnny and my
dog Rocky. Let's say, to benefit dog Rocky, he is
going to have his share protected in a trust. My
son Johnny, who is not gainfully employed, and every time

(25:16):
he gets a job the boss didn't know what he
was doing and the job doesn't last, his share should
be in a trust to say he gets five percent
a year for twenty years.

Speaker 3 (25:27):
So in essence, what I'm hearing is, don't commingle your
trust and confuse it. Keep it clean.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
Absolutely just what you're saying, keep it crystal clear. The
last thing that we want to talk about with the
laws of your pets involves a romantic breakup. If you're
cohabiting with someone, if you're married and you share a pet,
who gets the pet upon breakup? And like we see

(25:57):
in the child custody arena. The custody issue with a
pet is often used as a weapon between the parties.
So sometimes a party who doesn't even want the dog
wants to inflict maximum suffering on the other parties, so

(26:19):
they pretend they want the dog. And some of these
cases do make it all the way to court. Most
of them settle before that time. But you really you
want to work this out on the front end. And
if you have a cohabitation agreement, if you have a

(26:39):
prenuptial agreement, you want to address who is going to
get any furry family members that you might have. Now,
we don't have to identify at the outset which one
of us is going to end up with custody, but
we want to lay out the parameters for making that

(27:00):
determination upon breakup. Who, for example, is better situated to
spend time with the animal, whose work schedule is the
most flexible, Who can provide outside time for the animal,
opportunities for the animal to socialize with other animals. If

(27:25):
you don't do this, the law of most states says
whoever bought or adopted the pet is the one who
ends up with it, even if that is not appropriate.
We are seeing several states move to a standard of

(27:47):
the best interests of the pet where the court will
take these factors into consideration before awarding custody. And you
might even have a situation where the party who doesn't
have custody has visiting rights and they might have continuing

(28:09):
financial responsibilities.

Speaker 3 (28:11):
Is this something you could talk at the time, We
know how much time left, But is this something you
could consider in a prenup?

Speaker 2 (28:19):
You absolutely should consider it within a prenup. The thing
you can't do within a prenup is deal with child custody. Right,
you can't legally make those determinations ahead of time. A
court must become involved with that at the time of
a divorce or breakup. But you can arrange for the

(28:42):
pet custody in advance, and I recommend that everyone do that. Yeah,
one of the very important things to think about. Okay,
So with that we are almost out of time. I
encourage all of you to visit me during the week
on my website where we have videos and free legal documents,

(29:06):
and that's my Asset Protection Attorney dot com. And check
out Instagram at my lawyer an where you can see
the late Lucky in her Wonder Woman costume. With that,
everyone thank you for tuning in. I hope you join

(29:27):
us next week. Have a great day.

Speaker 1 (29:42):
The preceding program was sponsored by New York Priority Medical Care.
The preceding was a paid podcast. iHeartRadio's hosting of this
podcast constitutes neither an endorsement of the products offered or
the ideas expressed