The merits of planning a Digital Legacy alongside your Will by estate planning expert Robert Cartmell.
I, Robert Cartmell, having worked in ‘estate planning’ areas of work for over 25 years and a common question that arises with families is how to organise digital information.
What is a ‘Digital Legacy Trust’?
A digital legacy is the online presence you leave behind when you pass away. It is your digital presence.
What usually comprises a ‘digital presence’?
Financial Assets and holdings
for example, online-only bank accounts and any non-paper based form of assets. These could include cryptocurrency holdings and accounts.
Social media profiles
for example, Facebook/Linked-In/X (formerly Twitter)/Instagram etc.
E-mail addresses, email folders
for example, Outlook, Hotmail or Gmail account
Online shopping
for example, Amazon account
Any other libraries of online material and information. This could include photographs and music saved to a digital online server for example, Google storage and photos, music stored online with Amazon/iTunes/Spotify
Why should you prepare for it?
The digital legacy concept is a relatively new one and this means that there may not yet be sufficient legal procedure in place to protect your online presence when you pass away.
Not having a digital legacy can cause a great deal of distress and even financial loss or difficulty for your beneficiaries not to mention additional cost in terms of time and money in extra administration of your estate.
Alongside your Will, you may have prepared a schedule or plan for the passing of your items, household effects and chattels. Doing so helps your executors ensure that your wishes are carried out smoothly and effectively. In a similar way, your executors could benefit from guidance as to the extent of your online presence and how it is to be managed.
What are the potential problems?
Access to your digital information
This is the biggest problem faced when settling your digital affairs. Knowing which accounts you hold online and then gaining access to these accounts is an important facet of winding up your legal and financial affairs.
Digital life goes on!
Until notified formally, those online accounts will automatically continue. What exists of you on the internet will likely be around for a long time. This can include images, posts to social media, along with any website containing your name, will be easily searchable for generations to come. These days, part of how a person is remembered is defined by their residual online presence and once they’re gone, there’s not much that loved ones can do about it.
Indirect financial costs
For regular subscriptions you have to online services, such as music, film or data storage sites, unless they are contacted (and passwords provided for online access) and cancelled, accounts could continue to be debited, at least until your bank accounts are frozen by the provision of a death certificate.
Licences
Digital media collections and downloaded TV programmes/films/music are now often paid for through licences to use them. In some instances, licences expire on death and thus the benefit disappears and is inaccessible to your loved ones.
Treasured items
Treasured items are not these days restricted to tangible objects. Archives of photos, creative elements such as music, writing, poems etc are things we might want to pass on but are usually stored on our computers or online. Unlike a box stored in the attic, which will be discovered eventually, sentimental digital items may be lost forever. Particularly this is a problem for items saved to a hard drive where the technology to access it might be soon lost.
Preparing your digital legacy
This does not need to be a difficult task. With a small amount of thought and effort, you can create a plan for making things easier for your loved ones.
Our suggested approach is as follows:
Complete a basic directory.
Our version is available from us please use our ‘contact us’ page to request our ‘Digital Legacy Spreadsheet’
If you can complete the directory and send it to us we will store this confidentially alongside your Will. This will act as a guide for your online accounts, making sure your family or executors are able to find them easily.
We will then advise of what ought to be included within your Will to make reference to the Digital Legacy and whether it should contain any specific instructions/bequests to ensure the same is sufficiently binding for your wishes to be carried out.
With our directory, you can specify your wishes with each element. That will include how to deal with the following:
- Online bank accounts
- Social Media Pages
- Online shopping accounts;
- Email Accounts
- Regular online subscriptions
- Music and Film libraries
- Air Miles
- Betting websites and National Lottery
Where should you keep your Digital Legacy guide?
We suggest you keep the Digital Legacy passworded and saved to a USB stick and that you keep this reviewed and updated as you update your passwords/accounts going forward. We then suggest you contact us when reviewing your Will to ensure that we keep the most up to date version. You will no doubt open new accounts online, so keep your directory up to date.