Digital Estate Planning – How to Prepare your Online Assets for After Death

We live in a digital society. We present and store an ever-growing amount of our lives (social, financial, work) in digital form. The average person has over 200 accounts per email, up from 150 just three years ago. Family treasures like photos, home movies, and messages now predominantly exist in digital form, and often kept on hard drives, online accounts and apps such as services of Facebook, Apple, Shutterfly, and Gmail. All of the accounts and their contents are part of your personal estate portfolio and need to be included with your plans.

But have you thought about a strategy for your digital property?

Unfortunately, the answer isn’t as easy as we might think. Unlike physical assets, digital property comes with numerous legal and technical issues that can prevent access to our most valuable and treasured possessions. Every time you sign up for a new online account or download a new app, you are agreeing to the content provider’s Terms of Services. This is a contract that discloses their privacy policy and the process for handling an account holder’s death. If you’re like 98% of us (the writers of this blog included), you don’t bother reading these agreements and quickly hit the “Agree” button to begin using their service. With this rush, it’s easy to ignore or miss important information.

Currently, laws and policies regarding digital property are not uniform in handling a decedent’s “digital estate.” As a result, many problems arise for trustees and executors in carrying out their duties. It’s important for them to know about accounts and obtain access to logs, data, and contents to effectively settle an estate.

Due to increased liability concerns for online companies, Terms of Service Agreements often contain harsh rules for fiduciaries, family, and loved ones trying to recover digital possessions. Not knowing these rules and requirements can cause them to spend significant money and time in trying to recover these memories, legacies, and monies. And the reality is that there’s still a high likelihood of failure causing financial and legacy loss.

Not creating an online accounts and digital property succession plan leaves a lot to chance. Your digital possessions could disappear forever.

Many people think about sharing passwords (aka Account Holder Impersonation) with friends and family. But password sharing is problematic. Besides being a violation of laws, it breaches the content provider’s Terms of Service, increases the risk of fraud, and may create liability concerns for the very loved ones you are trying to help.

How can you protect your digital possessions from being lost forever and save your family the sizable undertaking of having to deal with the roadblocks and hurdles that come with digital assets?

Almost all content providers mandate that if an account holder dies, then no one else can have direct access to the account, making it difficult to obtain the disclosure of an account’s contents to the estate and loved ones.

Recovery is possible. Under North Carolina law, a decedent’s personal representative or trustee can have the power to access information and manage digital assets and electronic communications if the following is given to the service provider:

– Written request for disclosure
– Certified copy of death certificate
– Certified copy of Letters Testamentary
– Unless direction is in an online tool, a copy of the will or other record evidencing User’s consent to disclosure.

And even if all this information is provided, content providers can demand additional information, including proof of the decedent being the account holder.

Using an online tool is a simple way to help trustees and executors locate and access digital possessions. As you continue to utilize online sources, you should create an inventory list of your online accounts and digital possessions.

Here are a few ways that online tools can be beneficial:

1. Online resources specialized in the recording and maintenance of online accounts and digital property designed to help you securely create and record the inventory.
2. Online tools allow you to direct how your online accounts are managed after your death, including
– Determining who is going to go through your email, pictures, files, etc. so they can be passed on appropriately. This will prevent a single family member from being overwhelmed.
– Preventing accounts from expiring or being ignored before auto-deletion policies kick-in.
– Providing action-oriented instructions for deletion, transference, memorialization, or other instructions.
3. Direction regarding disclosure using an online tool can override a contrary direction by the user in a will, trust, power of attorney, or other records.

Planning a digital estate is needed in today’s online world. They help to ensure digital assets with financial value are included with your estate, but they also preserve sentimental property value like photos and videos and your legacy. Digital planning doesn’t have to be an overwhelming task.

Strauss Attorneys, PLLC can discuss your digital assets with you, helping to ensure your goals are achieved. Whether it’s financial, sentimental, or otherwise, these matters are important to you. Strauss Attorneys, PLLC is proud to offer our clients a professional and exclusive approach to your digital property succession plan. We also provide access to the most current technological solutions to their estate planning management, including StraussSecure™, which is a new, secure, online portal that enables our clients to access copies of their estate planning documents online and to provide access to selected family members or advisors.