Estate Planning For Digital Assets In 5 Steps

Increasingly, our lives are becoming digitized. As a result, a bigger proportion of our net worth may be in our digital assets.

Yet most of us don’t prepare wills (only 44% do) and if we do, we may  not fully address these assets in our estate planning documents.

Estate planning for our digital assets follows a similar process as  planning for the distribution of our physical assets but there are  unique challenges.

Creating A Plan for Digital Assets In 5 Steps

I will guide you through five steps so that your digital assets can be properly addressed  for your loved ones.

A list of all digital assets, those with monetary and sentimental values, should be categorized and referenced in a document.

1. Create A Digital Asset Inventory

You may want to divide the list into monetary and non-monetary accounts. The latter may be more personal or sentimental.

2. Decide how you want to handle some of these accounts

Your plans for your digital assets should be formalized in a legally binding document such as a will or codicil.

3. Estate Planning Documents: Powers of Attorney, Wills and Trust

Each state has their own Statutory Short Form of Attorney where your  attorney can include language to limit or supplement authority granted  to the agent you have chosen.

4. Powers of Attorney (POA)

Digital assets that have value can be distributed through either wills or trusts.

5. Distribution of Digital Property: Wills or Trusts

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