What Digital Accounts and Assets Might You Be Forgetting in Your Estate Plan?

A relatively new category of assets that you should include in your estate plan are those that are digital. Due to the digital age, many people don’t think about how many accounts they have opened or how difficult it would be for loved ones to access those accounts if something happened to them.

Many people now keep digital financial or other property accounts that should all be planned for appropriately within your estate. These assets have a sentimental and monetary value to the estate and should be accounted for, especially for those digital accounts that have any financial value. Other accounts might need to be closed as soon as possible because they are set up for automatic payments and an executor might not be able to easily locate and close these.

Other accounts could be helpful for gathering additional financial information. Those documents that could eb associated with the administration of a trust or an estate, for example, could be found in digital form on flash drives, online accounts, smartphones, and laptops. Examples include social media accounts, online video accounts, data storage accounts, financial online accounts like PayPal, domain name memberships, online music accounts and email.

One of the biggest problems with digital accounts is that each of these companies will have their own individual terms of service and requirements. This means that you will need to review this data and include appropriate information for your executor or personal representative to access this material. To better understand how digital accounts fit into your estate plan, schedule a consultation with an experienced estate planning lawyer in Virginia Beach.