Our digital worlds (and digital property) are ever expanding. From Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram to downloaded music and movies, many people have a considerable amount of information stored online that needs to be accounted for after death. May these accounts, music or movies be passed to your surviving heirs or beneficiary? The answer depends upon the digital property in question.
Most of the information and accounts on social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter and Instagram is not owned by the individual but licensed for his or her use. The license is not transferable, and thus, may not be willed or transferred upon death. Each site has different regulations on how it handles the license upon the death of a user. Facebook for example, will allow for the account to go into “memorial” status and allow others to view the account for some time after your passing.
For all social media accounts and emails, list all the accounts, users name, and passwords in your testamentary document or on a separate document, in order for your executor or administrator to have easy access to the accounts. You can instruct your executor or administrator to notify your followers of your death and possibly have your executor post your obituary or final words to the social network site.
Digital Property like Music, Movies and Photos
Music and Movies are increasingly purchased on the internet and downloaded to a computer or a cloud-based service. Some collections can be quiet extensive and worth a considerable amount of money. You want to be sure to make these collections available to your heirs and beneficiaries. For content that is downloaded and stored on your computer or external hard drive, those items will be easily transferable to your beneficiaries. Your testamentary documents can specifically list albums or movies to be distributed or just generally as percentage to your beneficiaries. For the content stored in cloud based services, it is important that you list the account name and password in the testamentary document or separate document for easy access and distribution to your beneficiaries.
Financial Accounts and Utilities
A very difficult part of initiating a probate proceeding is gathering the valuation of the assets of the estate. In this day and age, there are few individuals that receive in the mail a paper statement from the bank each month detailing the account balance and activities. Statements are now delivered via email or an email notification is sent that the statement is now available online. In order to initiate a probate proceeding, the executor or the administrator will need to prove to the court the value of the estate assets. Banks have implemented very strict privacy regulations that make it very difficult to receive any account information unless you are listed on the account. Therefore, in order to help your executor or administrator, it would be extremely helpful to document each account with accompanying user name and password for easy access. Your executor would then be able to print off a statement of the account to prove to the court the value of the accounts and potentially save your estate further probate expense.
With the ever changing internet landscape, it is important to have a well-drafted will or trust to assist your executor on distributing your digital property in the manner you desire. If you feel that you need direction or assistance with creating a testamentary document to help facilitate the distribution of your internet content, please contact us for a free consultation.
