Page 23 - Leisure Living Magazine August 2018

Defining Assets
Digital
Consumer Information - Estate Planning And Digital Assets
By David Lenz, Courtesy of the Ohio State Bar Aassociation
Planning for what happens to our assets after we pass has long included considering a standard list of financial accounts and physical possessions. These days, much of our business and personal lives are conducted electronically, bringing a whole new category of assets into the estate planning process. With changing privacy laws, new ways of storing sen- timental materials and even brand new curren- cies, it is wise to take digital assets into account
in the estate planning process.
electronic statements or charge fees for paper statements. However, email service providers are often unwilling to turn over account contents to an executor because the contents of electronic communications are subject to heightened priva- cy protections under federal law.
If someone owns bitcoin or other cryptocur- rencies, the private keys are the only way to recover those assets. If the decedent died without leaving information about how to access his or her keys, there often is no central mechanism to recover them and the value of those assets will be lost
forever. On the
more sen- timental side, many people would like to provide family and friends access to photos and vid- eos stored on smart- phones
and other devices, but Apple cannot provide the passcode to unlock an iPhone after its user is deceased. On the other hand, some individuals may want to prevent others gaining access to certain embarrassing or private information. A comprehensive estate plan can help in achieving either goal.
For many years, planning for digital assets has been at a tricky intersection of contract law, federal cybersecurity law and probate law. The recent Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA) in Ohio now provides guidance on the rights to access digital assets for four types of fiduciaries: executors, agents under powers of attorney, guardians and trustees.
Continued on page 24
Digital
fall into four main
categories. The first
consists of purely
electronic items that
have actual monetary
value, like bitcoin,
other cryptocur-
rencies and domain
names. The second is
online access to reg-
ular financial infor-
mation like bank and
investment accounts.
Third is electronic communications which pri- marily include email accounts and public and private messages in various social media profiles. The fourth category includes all other activities conducted online, including family photos and videos, hobbies, genealogy and information for volunteer organizations, to name a few.
The consideration of these digital assets in estate planning is becoming essential. The email account, for example, can be crucially important to gather other information about the estate. Executors have often used paper mail to understand what the decedent owned. As state- ments and tax documents arrived, the executor could piece together a picture of the estate’s financial situation. Nowadays, many financial institutions require their customers to receive
assets
www.LeisureLivingMagazine.com
August 2018 LeisureLiving | 23