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How To: Tech Tips

Grant Rawdin Guest Column

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The estate planning process starts with an accounting of your assets and how you want them managed or distributed. But have you considered which assets are “real” and which are “virtual”? And how will your online bills be paid if you become incapacitated? What will happen to the electronic assets of your business when you pass away?

These have become key issues in today’s digital world, with digital assets emerging as a new category of personal property. These include business records, banking and brokerage online accounts, domain names, intellectual property rights, photo and music libraries, blogs, and personal and business social media accounts.

We are creating new digital assets at breakneck speed by sending emails, updating social media sites and conducting business digitally, contributing to a virtual maze of digital loose ends left by decedents. Professionals and small-business owners must consider how to deal with complications from the death of an owner of digital assets when a paper trail does not exist.

For example, an online business may be the sole source of income for an individual who becomes incapacitated. Solo practitioners and physicians electronically store customer addresses, patient information, lists of recurring expenses and insurance documents. Professionals using “in the cloud” software may depend entirely on email contact with clients and suppliers. The daily operations of a business could be devastated by the death or incapacitation of an owner.

Many people believe that their spouses or next of kin can step in to handle digital affairs. However, state and federal laws are unclear regarding the rights of beneficiaries and fiduciaries with respect to digital assets. Federal privacy laws prohibit service providers from knowingly divulging contents of electronically stored documents.

Few states have enacted specific laws regarding fiduciaries and digital access; some are limited in scope to email accounts, and others extend to electronically stored documents. While Florida has not yet advanced any legislation on this subject, close to 20 other states are considering legislation to address fiduciary access to digital assets. The validity of these state laws is unclear since they seem to conflict with federal laws.

Further, online service providers have their own terms of service. For example, most brokerages that custody financial assets have terms of service stating that a user is granted a single, non-exclusive, non-transferable and limited personal license to access and use their website.

For those who rely on email communications, Google’s Inactive Account Manager allows individuals to set a timeout period of three, six, nine or 12 months. When an account has been inactive for the chosen time period, Google sends an alert via text message. If the user does not respond, Google notifies trusted contacts previously provided by the user. Once the user’s death is confirmed, Google follows that person’s instructions to either delete the accounts or share them with the trusted contacts.

If this Inactive Account Manager is not set up, even government-issued identification and the decedent’s death certificate might not be sufficient documentation to access the decedent’s Google account.

Steps to address the issue

We recommend proactively addressing this growing issue with the following four steps:

Our world today is rich in both real and virtual assets. This evolving area of estate planning demands our focus now, at a time where the laws have not yet caught up to the practical issues and values that we all face.

Grant Rawdin is president and CEO of Wescott Financial Advisory Group LLC, which has offices in Coral Gables, Miami, Boca Raton and Philadelphia. Email him at email@example.com.
 

Banking & Financial Services

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