Pet Care Instructions for Your Executor: A Perth Carer’s Plan for Mum’s Dog When She Can’t

You’re the one who drives across Perth to check on Mum. She has a fourteen-year-old kelpie cross, two daily medications, and a vet in Subiaco who’s known the dog longer than you have. If Mum is hospitalised or dies, her executor — your brother in Melbourne, named in her will — will be the one legally responsible for the dog. He has never met the vet, doesn’t know the feeding routine, and has no idea that your cousin in Fremantle already agreed two years ago to take the dog in.

The problem

When an older person is hospitalised or dies, their pet’s fate is usually decided in the first 48 hours — and almost never by the person who knew the animal best. ASIC’s MoneySmart estate planning guidance treats pets the way the law treats them: as property of the estate, which the executor administers. That’s a clean legal description and a catastrophic practical one. Executors are usually adult children or siblings who live interstate, who arrive to a house that needs clearing, and who have no documented plan for the animal in the laundry.

The result, in shelters across Perth and the rest of Australia, is the same pattern every week: a confused senior dog or an indoor cat surrendered because the executor didn’t know there was a plan. There usually wasn’t one written down. The intended carer — the cousin, the neighbour, the friend from the dog park — was a verbal arrangement no one recorded, and your brother in Melbourne is making a decision in an unfamiliar kitchen at 9pm.

What the Asset Instruction Vault does

The Digital Legacy Vault is an asset-instruction register. For the pets module, it records: the animal (name, species, age, microchip number), the vet clinic and phone number, daily food and medication schedule, the intended carer’s name and contact details, the date that carer agreed to take the animal, and any bequest or small trust your parent has set up in the will to cover ongoing costs. Your parent’s executor sees this module — only this module — when release rules trigger.

The Digital Legacy Vault does not hold the animal, does not hold money, does not give legal advice on how the executor should administer the estate, and does not hold any passwords to your parent’s MyGov, pet insurance portal, or vet account. It’s an instructions register. That boundary is what keeps the simplified version outside the AFSL regime under Corporations Act Part 7.6, and outside AUSTRAC reporting obligations. Your parent retains ownership of the animal and the decisions; the vault just makes sure the executor isn’t guessing.

How it works

  1. You sit with your parent and record each pet: name, microchip, vet, medications, daily routine, behavioural notes (the dog is scared of thunderstorms; the cat hides from men).
  2. You record the intended carer — the cousin in Fremantle — including their phone number and the date they agreed. The vault sends them a consent prompt so their agreement is logged, not assumed.
  3. You name your parent’s executor as the recipient for the pets module. The executor accepts and the vault records their consent.
  4. If your parent is hospitalised or dies and release rules trigger, the executor is notified and sees the pets module: vet, carer, routine, bequest reference.
  5. The executor contacts the named carer directly. The animal moves to a known home within hours, not days. The vet has continuity. The shelter is never in the picture.

Why this matters in Perth

Perth families are unusually likely to have executors who live somewhere else — Melbourne, Sydney, regional WA, or overseas. The flight in from the east coast is four hours; the drive from Albany is five. An executor arriving from interstate to administer a parent’s estate in Perth is making time-pressured decisions about a house, a car, and a household pet with no local context. A clear pet instructions module — vet in Subiaco, carer in Fremantle, medication twice daily with food — lets the executor make the right call from the airport, not the wrong call from the kitchen.

Sources

Join the waitlist

Join the waitlist — first access when the Digital Legacy Vault opens for Perth carers

We’re opening waitlist access in tranches. Sign up to be notified when carers of aging parents in Perth can register their first pets module. The Digital Legacy Vault holds instructions about what exists and how your parent’s executor can find the vet and the agreed carer — not the animal itself, not your parent’s passwords, and not any money set aside for ongoing care.