When thinking about your estate planning, the first thing that may come to mind are your real property, personal property, savings and checking accounts, and/or stocks. But what about your digital assets?
Digital assets are your records, accounts and other assets that are stored in electronic or digital form and include your personal data stored in your computer or other digital devices. Digital assets in the form of accounts include your email accounts, blogs, or accounts with various social media portals such as Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and/or LinkedIn.
In addition, digital assets also include your assets of monetary value such as your online banking accounts, brokerage accounts, any domain name, PayPal or Venmo, frequent flyer miles, and many more.
In this day and age, almost everyone has digital assets. Planning ahead to protect these assets is important to ensure that your estate plan is comprehensive. To date, federal law prohibits unauthorized access to digitally stored information. In recent years, California created its own set of regulations relating to electronic mail services. To completely protect your digital assets, actions is required on your end.
Such actions include: reviewing the terms of use of your service providers and their policies regarding the designation of an agent for the deceased, setting up a constant backup of your online data, and maintaining an up-to-date inventory of your accounts and related passwords. In terms of estate planning, you should designate an agent, Executor, and Trustee to have power over your digital assets at your incapacity or death.
Here at Chauvel and Glatt, we understand that your digital assets have sentimental and often monetary value to you and your beneficiaries. Do not forget about them when considering your estate planning. To find out how our estate attorney can assist you, contact us today.
