Published on Harrison Estate Law
By Casey C. Harrison, March 11th, 2024
Nearly everyone owns digital assets these days, from email accounts to online cloud storage of files and photos, to cryptocurrency and NFTs. Some of these assets can hold great sentimental or even financial value to a person’s loved ones after their death. In spite of this, many people fail to account for their digital assets when preparing an estate plan.
The impact of digital assets on estate litigation is still being measured, but one thing is clear: if you don’t focus on estate planning for digital assets and plan for who will care for them after your death, someone else will.
What happens to your digital assets if you don’t include them in your estate plan? The short answer is… they may simply disappear.
Without a digital asset estate plan, it will be far more difficult for your personal representative to identify and document your digital assets. They may be able to locate certain assets by accessing your household computer and reviewing your saved passwords. However, other digital assets may be overlooked or simply lost if not documented as part of a digital asset estate plan. To avoid this, you and your estate planning attorney should prepare a list of your digital assets, along with links to the apps or URLs used to access them and log-in credentials necessary to access the account.
Casey C. Harrison
