You can direct what happens to those digital assets, even if it means destroying them.
Almost everyone has digital assets in today’s world and it is important to protect access to them in your estate plan, according to the Valdosta Daily Times in “Preparing an estate strategy for digital assets“.
Digital assets include information on phones and computers, content uploaded to social media sites like Facebook, Instagram and others, creative/intellectual content in digital property and records from online communications, including emails and texts.
Do these accounts really have any value? Yes—according to security software provider McAfee, the average American’s digital assets are worth about $55,000.
Estate strategies for digital assets require an awareness of new and changing laws about digital assets. Almost every state has now passed some version of the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA), which has defined a path for the future of digital accounts, when the owner passes. RUFADAA has set a hierarchical structure for the transfer of digital assets.
First, if the service provider has a means of permitting the transfer of the asset to a designated party of the original asset owner’s choice, that takes priority. Gmail and Facebook have a means of creating a directive to state the owner’s wishes.
If no such directives are on the website, then the instructions denoted in traditional estate documents must be followed, assuming that those documents are prepared properly.
If none of that is in place, then the service provider’s Terms of Service Agreement (TOSA) takes priority. If the provider’s TOSA says that the account is a nontransferable lifetime lease, its ownership may not be transferred to another person. However, as a result of RUFADAA, the owner has the right to appoint a fiduciary to access, manage or close out an online account. The power may be exercised if you are dead or if you are incapacitated.
However—you must name this fiduciary and grant the legal power to an individual through your will, power of attorney or trust agreement. Otherwise, no such authority can be given.
What else should you do? Leave a digital road map for your executor: accounts, passwords and username. Note that if the platforms use facial recognition or other biometric markers, they may not be able to gain access to the accounts. Check with social media and merchant websites to see what policies are for transferring or maintaining digital assets, when the owner dies. You should also look at reward points and credits to see how they can be transferred, and find out how pending transactions, like automatic orders, can be handled.
An estate planning attorney can advise you on creating an estate plan that fits your specific circumstances and protects your digital assets.
Reference: Valdosta Daily Times (May 26, 2019) “Preparing an estate strategy for digital assets“
