Apart from the usual assets that you leave behind after your death, there exists a whole other range of assets of a digital nature that you may not have considered or made provision for after your death. If left unchecked, it could result in devastating consequences.
Typically, upon death, a person’s estate will consist of various monetary assets, including bank accounts, immovable property, motor vehicles and insurance policies. Ideally, all the important details of these assets would be contained in a folder and stored in a safe place, with an executor or family member being able to easily locate it in order to wind up the estate.
However, times have changed and many people choose to store this valuable information in digital format. Digital assets can also include, but are not limited to, e-mail accounts, social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn), blog posts, photo or music sharing accounts and digital purchases through for example Takealot.com. If no details and instructions are left behind to anyone about these assets, it will be impossible for those in charge of winding up the estate to locate the digital assets and/or distribute them to the beneficiaries. These assets may hold monetary value and may never be located and lost forever. Also, while digital music libraries and photo albums, for example, may not have any monetary value, for some they certainly hold sentimental value and their loss could be devastating.
Important questions to ask yourself when planning your Digital Estate Plan include the following:
- Who is to manage and have control over your digital estate? (Make sure that this ‘digital executor’ is technologically savvy and has the right skills in this regard.)
- How will your passwords be accessed after your death?
- What is to happen to the digital estate? (For instance, whether digital accounts should be closed or digital devices cleared of their contents and whether printouts of accounts should be given to particular people?)
- Who is to receive the digital estate, and in what form?
In order to prevent your digital information from going missing forever, it is important to be proactive and ensure that it devolves according to your digital estate plan. It is advisable to get assistance from our specialised Trusts and Estates team offer comprehensive advice on Digital Estate Plans, Wills and other matters pertaining to Estate Planning. At the very least ensure that passwords and access details form part of a Letter of Wishes which will ensure your wishes in this regard are adhered to.
