Many people have significant digital assets, but likely have not documented these for the purposes of their estate plan. You may need to work with a team of professionals to help you decide what assets fall into your digital estate and how to address them. These include your financial advisor, your lawyer, and CPA.
You may need to discuss your current state of digital assets and whether a will or trust is sufficient for determining what happens to these in the future. You may also need to document access materials so that your personal representative or executor can get in, download anything, or close down those accounts if needed.
There are three different components that may factor into your digital estate. The first is hardware which includes tablets, computers, DVDs, flash drives, hard drives and memory cards. Software is the second category, which covers applications that use to manage or create information like tax software, blogging tools or Quicken.
Finally, your digital estate also includes online presence tools such as social media profiles, email addresses, online photos, storage sites, online shopping site accounts, financial sites and blogs. Working with a qualified professional, like an attorney at our Pasadena estate planning office, is one of the best ways to ensure that you’ve thought about each component of your digital estate.
