Virginia and Nevada Pass Bills Regarding Management of Digital Assets Post Mortem

As I previously discussed, there has been an increase indigital life, technology should play an important role in estate planning. Thisyear, 10 states have considered legislation related to the management ofdigital assets. Recently, two states have passed the bill. Now, seven stateshave laws managing digital assets post mortem.

Virginia Gov. McDonnell signed a bill witha narrow scope—applying just to minors that helps survivors accessminors’ online accounts post mortem. In Nevada Gov. Sandoval signed anotherbill empowering executors to retrieve the deceased’s personal emails. However,the two bills are not comprehensive giving experts a lot to think about. “Ifyou’re going to be creating a new law that deals with what happens to digitalassets when someone can no longer manage them, you might as well be ascomprehensive as possible,” says George Washington University law professorNaomi Cahn.

The Uniform Law Commission (ULC), isa nonprofit that champions federalism by drafting and promoting statelaws on different topics one of which is digital assets after death. Expertsspeculate that the ULC’s work is part of the reason why states aren’t draftingdigital asset management post mortem bills.
For more information of this topicplease see my article, Estate Planning in the Digital Age, foradditional information on this increasingly popular topic.

See Katy Steinmentz, States Seek A Way To Pass On Digital Accounts After You Die, Swampland Time, Jul. 27, 2013.

Special thanks to Naomi Cahn (John Theodore Fey Research Professor of Law, George Washington University School of Law) for bringing this article to my attention.