In the age of computers, email, social media, and online banking not many of us are only keeping paper statements and records of passwords. Intellectual property rights to things like websites, online assets like bitcoin, and even are social media are part of your ‘Digital Assets’. If done correctly, your estate plan can help your Personal Representative handle these assets after your death.

If you use tax preparation or business software like QuickBooks, your records aren’t going to be in a filing cabinet, they’re going to be on your computer. Your computer and accounts including Facebook, email, blogs, photo collections, and DropBox all commonly have password protection. Without access to these passwords your Personal Representative may be unable to access your accounts after your death. Making arrangements in advance so that your loved ones have access to these digital stores is important because most of the probate laws haven’t quite caught up with the digital age, so if you don’t provide the access now the information could be lost forever after your death. Unlike bank accounts, most online email and social media accounts do not just automatically allow a listed beneficiary access without a password.

Estate planning for digital accounts involves making a list of what accounts you have, providing passwords, and providing some direction for what you would like to happen to those accounts. The list can be a hard copy paper list, or if you have a large number of varied passwords you may want to look into a computerized ‘password vault’ which is an electronic list of all your passwords that you in turn need only one password to unlock and view all the passwords. As for directions on what happens to these accounts, most directions will probably be fairly straight forward, such as close the account or turn it over to someone else to utilize, however social media can act as online wake for people to share memories of the deceased and to reach out to the loved one and you can direct that such accounts be left going online for as long as you feel is appropriate.

If you have questions or concerns about Estate Planning, call Limitless Law PLLC at (360) 685-0145 or use the “Ask an Attorney” link on our website to contact us today!

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