Digital Assets need to be dealt with on death
If keeping your family running involves a lot of life admin, welcome to adulthood!
One of my most popular Instagram posts in 2020 was a quote that said:
“I had to quit my jobs so I could read emails from my kids’ school full time”.
It was just so relatable people couldn’t scroll past without liking or sharing it!
Similarly, I know this topic is also going to be super relatable, and I hope also helpful.
Think about how complex and connected the web of devices, and online accounts are that keep things running (semi) smoothly for you in your life.
If you’ve never thought about it before, my Digital Asset Checklist has listed for you some of the most common Digital Assets that people control and own and it’s a real eye opener once you pull the thread and realise how many there are, and how much they all talk to each other.
What are Digital Assets?
The term “digital assets” doesn’t have a uniform and agreed definition, but for my purposes and clients it is a broad term that I use when I want to capture any one or all of these three types of things:
1. Devices that you own, such as:
a. Laptops and computers;
b. Tablets, e-readers and gaming devices;
c. Mobile phones.
2. Digital Assets, includes assets that are stored in digital as opposed to hard copy form, such as:
a. Audio, Video recordings;
b. Photo images;
c. Documents (which may include your valuable IP);
d. Tokens, coins and code stored digitally;
e. Contents of cloud storage;
f. And the contents of desktop or external storage devices;
3. Digital Accounts, are accounts that you access as a consumer, such as:
a. Email;
b. Social media;
c. File-sharing;
d. Banks;
e. Domain name and registrations;
f. Online stores;
g. Smart home automations and accounts (including locks!).
How are they dealt with in estate planning?
From a legal perspective, clients who work with me always have included in both their Will (activated if the client dies) and Enduring Power of Attorney (commonly activated if the client loses capacity to make decisions for themselves) a power for the executor or attorney to access and control the digital accounts and assets- “to the maximum extent permitted by law”. But see the thing is, in reality without reading the Terms and Conditions of every account that you are a user of, we can’t tell you what “to the maximum extent permitted by law” will actually mean, especially because many of the accounts and assets are from international companies with very different jurisdictions and powers. Which makes it risky (nay, negligent) to rely solely on the provisions in the legal documents.
This is where a good lawyer needs to also guide clients to take a practical approach, and encourage clients to consider and plan for passing control to the right people, at the right time, with the safest limits.
What’s the plan?
As I have mentioned, the Digital Asset Checklist has been created to help my community to:
Step 1- start thinking about how much of their lives (efficiency, value, and legacy) is contained in Digital Assets and Accounts.
Step 2- brainstorm the top 3 areas of concern or accounts as they relate to the prompts I have included in the document.
This will serve as a very basic list of your most important Accounts and Assets should your Executor or Attorney need to start thinking about what you actually had in your control.
Hopefully for a “quick win” you will see the need for and implement as a first order of importance a digital password manager.
Then, personally for me I have taken the approach that managing my Digital Assets and Accounts is an elephant that I need to eat. It’s too big if I try and do it in one bite, but hopefully by getting started with one small bite (improvement) I can improve my systems and access for my attorneys and executors when they will need it.
What’s next?
For the last three years I have been keeping my eye on what programs, accounts, systems, and services (delivered by lovely humans like you and I) are on the market to help myself and my clients. What I know for sure is that there is no silver bullet, no one thing will take care of all the things.
Right now, I am working on a Market Review of all of the different programs, accounts, systems and services that could help us all take small but effective bites of the elephant.
It will be ready in the next few months. In the meantime I would love to hear from you what your best programs, accounts, systems and services are to help manage Digital Assets and Accounts? What have you implemented and loved, and I will check it out to include in the Market Review if I think it will help my community too.
Please do connect with me on Instagram and DM me to chat about this.
Or email me at: lucy@hhep.com.au
And don’t forget to download the Digital Asset Checklist here