Fashion designer Karl Lagerfeld died last February aged 85, and since then there have been many rumours on the internet that Mr Lagerfeld left most of his fortune to his cat, Choupette.
Choupette is not a typical cat. Unlike many other pets she has her own housekeeper, her own chef, her own bodyguard, her own Wikipedia page, and her own Instagram account. She also has her own makeup line and her own agent. She needs the agent because, according to the New York Times she earned more than USD 3 million in 2015.
Mr. Lagerfeld’s style consultant says that Choupette changed Lagerfeld’s life, making him happy in a way no one thought possible.
This is all very interesting, but it will be even more interesting to see what happens as the administration of the Estate continues.
In most countries, including the Czech Republic, Choupette would now be facing a rather big legal problem. Because she is a cat, not a human being, she does not have legal personality and therefore cannot own things – or at least not legally important things. And if, because she is a cat, she cannot own things, then she can’t inherit them either. We are not sure where Mr Lagerfeld’s estate is being administered, but this rule applies in most countries in the world . . . unless of course he set up a Trust.
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But . .
Even setting up a trust usually doesn’t solve this problem. This is for exactly the same reason. Choupette is not a person. She cannot own assets. She therefore cannot inherit assets, and nor can she be the beneficiary of a trust. So, in most places, the problem remains.
Like Choupette, Czech Trusts are Special
The Czech Republic is unusual because it is one of the few places in the world where a trust for Choupette, if correctly prepared, would actually work. That is because in the Czech Republic is possible not just to set up a trust for a person or people (the beneficiaries), but it also possible to set up a trust for a purpose.
What is a purpose is limited only by your own imagination. Here are some examples of purposes:
- To help disabled children in Ostrava
- To maintain the village tennis court in Velký Vřešťov
- To encourage the playing of tiddlywinks in Moravia
- To award an annual prize to the best female firefighter in the Czech Republic
- To pay for an annual drinks party for the members of the Velký Vřešťov tennis club on condition that a toast is drunk in my memory
- The promotion of the freedom, independence, and integrity of the press in the Czech Republic
- To award a trophy bearing my name and a book token to the student at the Velký Vřešťov primary school who has the best result in Czech Language
- To send the current President of the Czech Republic a pair of rainbow pattern socks every Christmas, and of course
- to provide benefit for my cat Choupette.
What happens after Choupette passes on? That’s a good question and one of the reasons why proper drafting of the Trust is so important.
We don’t see that many trusts being set up this way for animals, mainly we think that most people don’t love their pets enough to justify the cost setting up the trust, but the important thing to know is that Czech law makes this, and all the other things on our list above, possible.
While trusts for cats don’t make sense for most people, trusts for some of the other purposes above do – something that is not possible in most other places
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