Delaware Law Provides Access to Digital Assets to Legal Executors

In addition to appointing a health care agent to take care of medical needs and an executor to take care of affairs after they're gone, citizens of Delaware can now also appoint a digital executor -- to look after their digital assets such as online bank accounts, social media accounts and email accounts.

A new law coming out of the first state grants the same access to digital assets as heirs or executors have always had over the rest of a person’s estate. Until other states do the same, the rest of us should make our own provisions, as advised in this article in the Washington Post, such as keeping a list of all online accounts and their passwords and making sure someone knows where that is. (As you know, DocuBank SAFE lets folks do just this. It also goes one step further by letting the user appoint a DocuBank Digital Executor -- who can get access to the digital asset password list and entire SAFE account when the user dies or becomes permanently incapacitated.)

August 25, 2014 | Advance Care Planning News, Advance Care Planning Policy