Most people these days have considerable digital assets, even if they have not really thought of them in that way before.
When making your estate plan, you need to address these digital assets as well as your physical ones. Here are a few examples.
Social media accounts
While most people’s social media accounts do not have any monetary worth, it is still important to address what happens to them when you die. You can do this in the accounts themselves, with options including taking the account offline when you die, leaving it online as it is, or passing control of it to someone else.
Digital subscriptions
You may have made regular payments for Netflix, Spotify or other streaming services, or even just satellite TV. You don’t want payments to keep coming out of your account after you have gone, but you may have family members you have permitted to benefit from access (such as if you have a family or multi-person account).
You may also have paid to download media, such as movies or books. It’s important to understand whether you have the right to pass these on to others (and if so how you can do so) or the right to make use of that media dies with you (which is often the case). Remember, downloading something doesn’t mean you own it- it’s often just a license to use or view it.
Cryptocurrency, NFTs and similar investments
There are multiple ways of investing money in the virtual rather than physical world. They typically come with high levels of privacy and security, which is what attracts many to them. This can create problems if you are not clear about ensuring that someone has the access needed to benefit from them after you are gone.
As this is a relatively new area of estate planning, and the laws are still evolving, it’s important that you seek experienced legal guidance to incorporate your digital assets along with your physical assets into a comprehensive estate plan.