“With so much of our financial information and personal information now online, estate plans today must address the fact that our digital selves will surely outlast our human selves.”
Life, as well as estate planning, used to be much more one-dimensional. Now that our lives are lived “In Real Life” (IRL) and online, estate plans need to include both aspects of our lives, according to this recent article from North Bay Business Journal titled “Your digital life likely will outlive you, so here’s how to bring your estate plan into the modern age.” You could decide not to deal with it, but then you are leaving a mess behind for your loved ones to untangle.
Here are a few of your digital assets to consider: bank accounts, email accounts, Facebook page, Linked In profile, online photo albums, blogs and websites. They’re likely to be around long after you are gone.
This is still a relatively new area of estate planning. What often happens is that heirs think they can simply find and use the decedent’s user name and passwords to access their accounts. However, what they learn is that they are legally not permitted to do so. There are state and federal laws, online platform user agreements and a host of barriers to retrieve online assets.
A new law was passed in 2017 in California that attempted to bring order to this chaos back in 2017. The Revised Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act allows executors and trustees to obtain disclosure of a person’s digital assets, after the original owner dies but only under certain conditions.
In the recent past, federal and state laws have made it hard for executors and trustees to gain access to these assets without a court order.
Just being the executor or trustee does not automatically give you the right to access assets. There has to be evidence that the decedent consented to disclosure and a court order may be necessary to prove the consent was correct.
The new law mainly gave social media platforms and privacy advocates what they wanted: a requirement of prior consent before disclosure. However, the end result is that it is easier to gain access to digital assets, if executors and trustees can show that the decedent did consent to disclosure.
However, it’s still not that simple. Here are a few steps to help your loved ones deal with your digital assets:
Inventory every digital asset that you have. Create a list of log-in and password information, plus any “secret questions/answers.”
Tell your trusted family member or friend where that list is. Store it with your other estate planning documents, possibly in your attorney’s vault.
Ask your estate planning attorney how they handle digital assets. Your lawyer will know what steps are necessary in your state to ensure that someone will have legal access to your digital assets after you pass away.
Do not include your digital asset inventory, as part of your will. If your estate goes through probate, all of your account information will become part of the public record.
Many wills don’t include provisions about digital assets. If this is the case with your will, contact your estate planning attorney now to make sure your online life is as protected as your “In Real Life” life.
Reference: North Bay Business Journal (Oct. 19, 2018) “Your digital life likely will outlive you, so here’s how to bring your estate plan into the modern age”
“現今有這麼多財務及私人資料在網絡上，資產計劃今天必須解決的事實是我們的數碼資產必定是比我們自我本身恆久。”
生活以及資產規劃曾經很簡單。現在，我們生活在“現實生活中”（IRL）和網絡上，資產計劃需要包括我們這兩個方面，按照 North Bay Business Journal 題為“Your digital life likely will outlive you, so here’s how to bring your estate plan into the modern age” 你可以決定不處理，但你會留下爛攤子讓你的親人去解決。
以下是您需要考慮的一些數碼資產：銀行賬戶，電子郵件賬戶，臉書頁面，Linked In個人資料，網上相冊，博客和網站。在你離開後這些都會一直存在。
這仍然是一個相對較新的資產規劃領域。經常發生的是，繼承人認為他們可以簡單地找到並使用去世的人的用戶名和密碼來取得他們的帳戶。但是，他們得知法律上並不允許他們這樣做。有州和聯邦法律，網絡平台用戶協議及一大堆障礙去阻止他們去取得這些數碼資產。
於2017年加州通過了一項新的法律試圖把這混沌在2017年帶回正軌，數碼資產使用權限修訂可以讓執行人及受託人在原擁有人去世後在一定的條件下取得一個人的數碼資產。
最近，聯邦和州法律規定遺囑執行人和受託人在沒有法院命令的情況下很難獲得這些資產。
僅作為執行人或受託人並不會自動授予您取得數碼資產的權利。必須有證據證明得到死者同意，並可能需要法院命令來證明同意是正確的。
新法律主要為社交媒體平台和隱私主義者提供了他們想要的東西：在披露之前需事先得到同意。可是如果遺囑執行人及受託人有證據證明死者同意披露, 這樣最終結果這些數碼資產更容易被取得。
但不是那麼簡單。以下是幫助您的親人處理您的數碼資產的幾個步驟：
清點您擁有的每個數碼資產。列出所有登錄和密碼的資料，以及任何“秘密問題/答案”。
告訴您信任的親友，該列表在哪裡。將其與您的其他資產規劃文件放在一起，可能存放在您的律師中。
詢問您的資產規劃律師如何處理數碼資產。您的律師知道您所在的州的程序，以確保在您去世後有人可以合法地取得你的數碼資產。
請勿將您的數碼資產清單列入遺囑。如果您的遺產需通過遺囑認證，您所有帳戶的資料將成為公開紀錄的一部份。
許多遺囑對數碼資產沒有規定。如果您的遺囑屬於這種情況，請立即聯繫您的資產規劃律師，以確保您的網絡生活與您的“真實生活”一樣受到保障。
參考: North Bay Business Journal (Oct. 19, 2018) “Your digital life likely will outlive you, so here’s how to bring your estate plan into the modern age”