Digital Estate Planning

In Estate Planning, Preparation Is Key

by

It is everyone’s hope that they will die after they have managed to get everything in order so that their family will have an easy time of it and not be left picking up the pieces.  Here are some things to put on your Estate Planning To Do list, to make it easier on your family if you depart this world before tying up all the loose ends:

  1. Identify a place in your house where you keep important information and documents and let trusted family members (or personal representatives) know where that is. I suggest a well-organized filing cabinet with clearly labeled folders containing important information and copies of your legal documents such as wills, trusts, powers of attorney and health care proxies.
  2. Create a list of your assets that includes the institution where each account is located, the account number, your contact person at that institution (if any) and their contact information. Include on this list bank accounts, investment accounts, annuities, life insurance, retirement accounts, etc.    Keep this list updated, and in the place where you keep other important papers so that it can be found.
  3. If you have original stock certificates, savings bonds, cash or other valuables in your house, make a note of where those items are kept so that they are not overlooked or inadvertently thrown out.
  4. Don’t forget digital estate planning. Create a list of usernames and passwords for any important online accounts – financial, photo storage, email, social media, document storage accounts. Keep this list updated and in the place where you keep other important papers so that it can be found.
  5. If you have young children or a child with special needs, consider a letter of instruction that provides important information about your child – the name and contact information for their physician, allergies, other important medical information and other things you think someone should know if they had to care for your children unexpectedly.
  6. Review and update beneficiary designations on life insurance and retirement accounts in consultation with your estate planning attorney to ensure the designations do not disrupt the other provisions of your estate plan.
  7. Do your best to keep your income tax filings up-to-date so that your family will not have to try to piece together that information in order to file income tax returns after your death. This is a painful and expensive process that can lead to lingering liability for family members.
  8. If you have a safe deposit box, make sure at least one other trusted family member’s name is on the box so that they will have access after your death This is especially important if your original Will or other estate plan documents are in the box.
  9. And finally, make sure your estate plan documents are up-to-date, and that you have left instructions for your family regarding where to find them, and the contact information for your estate planning attorney.

Tackle one of these tasks every month, and within a year you will be leaving your family well-prepared if something unexpected occurs.

November, 2019

© 2019 Samuel, Sayward & Baler LLC

Digital Estate Planning – It’s Time to Plan for your Digital Assets

by

In the year and a half since I last wrote about planning for digital assets not much has changed in Massachusetts.  Our state is still one of a handful of states that has not enacted the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA), although there is a bill pending in the Massachusetts legislature that would do so.  This bill would clarify the authority your appointed fiduciaries (such as your agent under your Power of Attorney, or the Personal Representative of your estate) would have to access your digital assets if you become incapacitated or pass away.

What has changed in the past year and a half is that we all continue to be more dependent upon technology, and our digital footprint increases with each passing day.  We continue to use social media, online photo and document storage, and email on a daily basis, increasing the digital “assets” we have stored in these accounts.  The importance of the assets stored online has also increased – perhaps this is the only place you now store vacation photos (rather than putting them in your photo album), or perhaps you only receive your bank or investment account statements online rather than in the mail. This online footprint will only continue to grow, as will the need for your estate plan to address your digital assets.

The more digital assets become mainstream, the more important it is to plan for access to these assets by others if you are not able to do so. To the extent these accounts contain information that you would like someone to be able to access after your death or incapacity, it is necessary to provide the appropriate authority for such access as well as instructions about what you want done with these “assets.”  For some types of these assets, digital estate planning strategies are is crucial to prevent financial loss (i.e. the loss of a domain name used for business purposes, bill payment, access to investment account information), to protect sensitive personal information (on-line dating websites), to avoid identity theft, and to allow access to valuable assets (think bitcoin or an author’s manuscript).

Here are some tips to manage your digital assets until Massachusetts law catches up with the rest of the country and we have a clear roadmap for access for Massachusetts fiduciaries:

  • Review the terms of service agreements for the online accounts you use. Understand what those agreements provide about access, and if and how others can be given permission to access your account. Have a qualified estate planning attorney review these on your behalf if you have questions.
  • If an online entity offers a way for you to give permission or access to your digital assets stored with that company, pay attention and follow the directions. For example, Facebook allows you to designate a Legacy Contact who can manage your account after you die, or you can choose to have your account deleted if you pass away. Google allows you to control what happens to your account through their Inactive Account Manager feature. Here you can designate when your account will be considered inactive, what should happen to your Google account in that event, and designate one or more people who will have access to whatever portions of your Google account you choose.
  • Update your estate plan documents, specifically your Power of Attorney, Will and Trust, to ensure those documents grant express permission for the fiduciaries named in those documents to access your digital assets, and express direction regarding what should be done with specific digital assets at death. In our office, we include express permission for access in these documents.
  • Keep a current list of your usernames and passwords in an online password manager or recorded in another way where a trusted person can access this information if needed, and let that person know where this information is located. As a start, we provide our clients with a Digital Assets Memorandum that can be used to record access information and instructions about digital assets.

Keep in mind that if you have not used an online entity’s prescribed method of giving someone permission to access your account, and do not have express permission and direction in your estate plan documents, the company’s Terms of Service Agreement will govern. In such a case, you and your digital assets are at the mercy of the online provider, which may not allow access following your death or incapacity. Don’t fail your loved ones with poor digital legacy planning.

March 2019

© 2019 Samuel, Sayward & Baler LLC

Planning for Your Digital Assets

by

Digital assets did not exist 25 years ago, but they are now part of our everyday existence.  Things like the contents of our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram accounts, photographs stored online, digital music, YouTube videos, on-line gaming accounts, domain names, and email are all digital assets – a collection of our digital property and electronic communications.  To the extent these accounts contain information that you would like someone to be able to access after your death or incapacity, it is necessary to plan to provide the appropriate authority and instructions for what you want done with these “assets.”  For some types of these assets, planning is crucial to prevent financial loss (i.e. the loss of a domain name used for business purposes), to protect sensitive personal information (on-line dating websites), to avoid identity theft, and to allow access to valuable assets (think bitcoin, an author’s manuscript, or family photographs).

Most of us create digital assets without a thought as to what will happen to those “assets” if we are no longer around or able to access them.  Even if you share your password for your on-line accounts with a trusted person, keep in mind that it is a violation of federal law for anyone other than you to access your accounts (because password sharing is prohibited under most terms of service agreements) unless the person with whom you share your password has the legal authority to access your account.

This is an emerging area of estate planning.  The Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (UFADAA) is an attempt to create some clarity in this area.  Massachusetts is one of only a handful of states that has not enacted this law, or even introduced it for consideration.  Hopefully our state legislature will not delay much longer.  The law allows fiduciaries to take action to marshall and protect the digital assets of the deceased or incapacitated person on whose behalf they are acting.  As a rule, access is difficult to obtain because on-line providers all have different policies or terms of service agreements with their customers.  The Uniform Act’s purpose is to bring some uniformity to these policies as they relate to fiduciaries, and to extend a fiduciary’s power over assets in a deceased or incapacitated person’s “estate” to include digital assets, giving a fiduciary the legal right to access online accounts.

The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court is in the process of deciding the case of Ajemian v. Yahoo!, Inc.  In this case Mr. Ajemian died with a Yahoo email account, and  Yahoo would not allow access to his account to his siblings who were the administrators of his estate.  This case has been bouncing around the court system since 2007 on procedural grounds, including whether the case had to be decided by a California court (where Yahoo is located) or whether the case was properly decided in Massachusetts where Mr. Ajemian was a resident prior to his death.  The Court now seems poised to decide the substantive issue of access to emails, after oral arguments in March of this year.

Here are some tips to manage your digital assets until Massachusetts law and a path to access becomes clearer:

  • If an online entity offers a way for you to give permission or access to your digital assets stored with that company, pay attention and follow the directions. For example, Facebook allows you to designate a Legacy Contact (Settings/General Account Settings/Manage Account) who can manage your account after your die, or you can choose to have your account deleted if you pass away. Google allows you to control what happens to your account through their Inactive Account Manager feature (My Account/Personal Info and Privacy/Control your Content).  Here you can designate when your account will be considered inactive and what will happen to your Google account, and designate one or more people who will have access to whatever portions of your Google account you choose.
  • Update your estate plan documents, specifically your Power of Attorney, Will and Trust, to ensure those documents provide express permission for the fiduciaries named in those documents to access your digital assets, and express direction regarding what should be done with specific digital assets at death. In our office, we include express permission for access in these documents, and provide our clients with a Digital Assets Memorandum that can be used to record instructions about digital assets.

Keep in mind that if you have not used an online entity’s prescribed method of giving someone permission to access your account, and do not have express permission and direction in your estate plan documents, the company’s Terms of Service Agreement will govern. In such a case, you and your digital assets are at the mercy of the online provider, which may not allow access following your death or incapacity.

September 2017

© 2017 Samuel, Sayward & Baler LLC

Wills • Trusts • Elder Law • Long-Term Care Planning • Estates

©2026 Samuel, Sayward & Baler LLP. All Rights Reserved. The information presented on this website should not be construed to provide legal advice, nor does it constitute the formation of an attorney/client relationship. Read the disclaimer.