Estate Planning for Your Digital Assets

As technology continues to flourish, it is important that we adjust our estates to include digital assets, like social media accounts, bank records, and e-mails. The modern-day estate generally includes these digital assets, but estate planners have yet to come up with an efficient solution to deal with them.

One main problem preventing sufficient estate plans has to do with access­—most everyone is password protected, which makes it difficult for fiduciaries to gain entry. Today, while several social media account providers are utilizing ways for users to arrange posthumous access to their accounts, there is no legal guidance on how executors are supposed to identify, collect, and distribute these digital assets. With such uncertainty in the law and future of digital assets, it might be best for users to self-manage these issues and simply provide loved ones with their login information.  

See Marjorie Suisman, The Virtual Estate, Private Wealth, June 17, 2016.