In March of 2016, Florida adopted a new law, entitled the “Florida Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act”. This law went into effect in July of 2016 and contains rules regarding the management and disbursement of digital assets by a fiduciary upon the death of an individual. This gives individuals the ability to specify what it is that they want to do with their digital assets, which simplifies the process of Estate Planning. The overarching goal of the “Florida Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act” is to give people the power to plan for the management of their digital assets if they die or become incapacitated. It accomplishes this goal by authorizing fiduciaries to either access, control, copy or delete an individual’s digital assets after their passing, according to the wishes set forth by said individual. The “Florida Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act” also gives the custodians of digital assets the authority to communicate and interact with the fiduciaries of their users without breaching any privacy expectations. Before this law was introduced, Florida did not have any legislation that specifically addressed the access of digital assets by a fiduciary upon an individual’s death or incapacity.
A digital asset is content owned by a person that is stored in digital form. Generally, digital assets relate to data or information that is stored on a device such as a smart phone or computer. Types of digital assets include, but are not limited to: photographs, presentations, spreadsheets, word documents, email, online banking, credit cards, or social media accounts. Digital assets are just as important as physical assets because they have financial and/or personal value to their owners. It is important to address the conveyance of your digital assets, which can be done in your Will. The attorneys at Bach & Jacobs specialize in Estate Planning and can help you develop a Durable Power of Attorney and a Will that not only address who will have access to your digital assets, but also clearly express your wishes for the transfer of your various assets when you pass away.
If you would like more information or have questions regarding asset protection or estate planning, please contact our office at: (941) 906-1231.
Use this digital asset inventory template to keep track of all of your important usernames and passwords for your digital fiduciary or personal representative. You should designate who you authorize to access each account or computer and also specify what they are authorized to do. For instance, you may wish for your Facebook account to be closed but want your email account to be preserved so your personal representative can retrieve stored sentimental photos.
Digital Assets Inventory Template
This list of account information should be kept in a secure location with other estate planning documents.
The attorneys at Bach & Jacobs, P.A. make efforts to stay on the cutting edge of new technologies that assist our clients, including the Personal Representatives that we represent. We recommend all trust and durable power of attorney documents specifically authorize access to digital information. We can also help you identify your digital assets and ensure that they are fully accounted for in your estate planning documents.
To set up an appointment to review what estate planning method would be best to grant access to your digital assets, call our office at (941) 906-1231.
When planning for the transfer of your digital assets, you should be sure the person given the power to access and disperse information from your digital accounts is technologically savvy. Most people appoint a surviving spouse or child who is financially literate to take care of many of their assets as personal representative or trustee. If this person is not familiar enough with computers and the technology associated with your digital accounts, you can appoint a separate digital fiduciary to perform actions such as closing accounts, accessing photo storage, and transferring digital content such as videos or purchased books and movies onto DVDs.
The attorneys at Bach & Jacobs, P.A. make efforts to stay on the cutting edge of new technologies that assist our clients, including the Personal Representatives that we represent. We recommend all trust and durable power of attorney documents specifically authorize access to digital information. We can also help you identify your digital assets and ensure that they are fully accounted for in your estate planning documents.
To set up an appointment to review what estate planning method would be best to grant access to your digital assets, call our office at (941) 906-1231.
To ensure that your digital assets are protected and dealt with as you desire after death, be sure to compile all usernames and passwords for online subscriptions and accounts in a secure location. Also, speak with an estate planning attorney about how to ensure your durable power of attorney will have authorization to access assets such as online bill pay, photos, or social media accounts. You should specify which, if any, of your digital assets you want deleted and, if you have digital assets which earn profits, where you want that money to go and who is able to access and handle it. An attorney can tell you where your digital asset wishes should be expressed, keeping in mind that wills become public record after death.
Planning for digital assets is a newly emerging issue in estate planning and is complicated by the fact that many accounts on websites such as Facebook and Google have Terms of Service agreements which can be violated by anyone besides the original account holder authorizing someone else to log in. Attempting to access an account without proper permission can constitute a violation of anti-hacking laws.
The attorneys at Bach & Jacobs, P.A. make efforts to stay on the cutting edge of new technologies that assist our clients, including the Personal Representatives that we represent. We recommend all trust and durable power of attorney documents specifically authorize access to digital information. We can also help you identify your digital assets and ensure that they are fully accounted for in your estate planning documents.
To set up an appointment to review what estate planning method would be best to grant access to your digital assets, call our office at (941) 906-1231.
Digital assets such as online bill pay accounts, online investment management accounts, personal records, digital movies, books, games, airline rewards points, and photos must be accounted for in modern estate planning to ensure your loved ones can access and control your digital accounts as you wish. As technology plays a growing role in our everyday lives, some of our assets carry personal value, such as photos and videos, and others, such as online blogs with paid advertisements, may even have monetary value. In order to ensure that personal accounts, sites, and memories are available to the desired loved ones after death, who you want to be given access to your digital accounts and what type of control they may have over them must be included in your estate planning documents.
At Bach & Jacobs, P.A., we incorporate planning for the transfer of digital assets into our estate and end of life planning for clients. Call our office today at (941) 906-1231 to set up an appointment to review how to make your digital assets a part of your estate plan and ensure access to these accounts is granted safely and as you desire.
Ever wonder what happens to a deceased person’s online accounts after they pass away?
With so many people going ‘paperless’ and communicating online, the Personal Representative of a probate estate may have trouble identifying online accounts and obtaining the digital content in those accounts. The state of Delaware recently passed a law that gives estate attorneys, executors and other fiduciaries more access to those online accounts after a person passes. The Wall Street Journal says the Delaware law “could set a national trend” as policy makers “wrestle with how to handle the digital remains people leave behind.” Florida may become one of the next states with similar legislation—a committee of the Florida Bar has been formed to propose such legislation.
The attorneys at Bach & Jacobs, P.A. make efforts to stay on the cutting edge of new technologies that assist our clients, including the Personal Representatives that we represent. We recommend all trust and durable power of attorney documents specifically authorize access to this information. We can also help you identify your digital assets and ensure that they are fully accounted for in your estate planning documents.
You can read the Wall Street Journal article here: http://blogs.wsj.com/law/2014/08/20/new-law-expands-access-to-google-facebook-accounts-of-deceased/
Question: My husband recently died. He was very tech savvy and handled all of our finances online. If the court appoints me personal representative, how am I going to find all his financial assets and accounts for administration of his probate estate?
Answer: Your situation is part of a growing trend as we move to a ‘paperless society.’ A good place to start to locate assets for the purposes of probate administration are smartphones, computers, email, and voicemail. You can look for information about assets by looking on your husband’s computer for favorites folders and websites, bookmarked websites, browsing history, and especially any financial software. If you need assistance with the handling of your husband’s estate, you can contact the attorneys at Bach & Jacobs. Our team stays on the cutting edge technologically and can show you new and innovative ways to identify all assets. You may even find that there are assets out of state that require an ancillary administration in the other state. Contact Bach & Jacobs at (941) 906-1231 to assist you with identifying and valuing digital assets for both in-state domiciliary probate administration or ancillary administration in Florida.
