Protecting Your Digital Assets With A Florida Estate Plan

A proper Florida estate plan can, and will, protect your digital assets. But, without the necessary provisions, there is a chance that your digital assets will fail to go to the people whom you would like to have them.

Going over the ways in which you can protect your digital assets with a Florida estate plan, and speaking with a lawyer, will allow you to protect your digital assets.

What Is A Digital Asset? 

A digital asset is a file, digital record, or online account.

Just as an example, if you have photos of your family, and they are stored on your Google Drive account, then these photos, as well as your Google Drive account, are both digital assets.

You can give your digital assets to your loved ones, if you develop an estate plan that incorporates those digital assets. But, if you do not incorporate these assets, there is a chance that they will be lost. 

If You Pass Away, What Will Happen To Your Digital Assets? 

The answer to the question above is “It depends.”

If you do nothing with your digital assets – you don’t share any passwords or include your digital assets in your estate plan – then nothing will happen to your digital assets.

Sometimes, the above is appropriate. But, if there are digital assets you wish to give to your loved ones – or, if you wish to protect those assets from being hacked or taken – then you can integrate them into your estate plan.

If you integrate your digital assets into your estate plan, then you can give them to specific people. And, in giving your digital assets to specific people, you give them the power to access, use, and modify those digital assets.

How Can You Protect Your Digital Assets? 

To protect your digital assets, in the event of your passing, you must:

• Clarify all of the digital assets that you own and, in turn, would like to give to your beneficiaries.
• Outline your wishes, regarding each one of those digital assets.
• Make secure records of your account information, passwords, and sensitive digital access information.
• Choose who to give these digital assets to,
• Develop a legally binding estate planning document, regarding these digital assets.

Outside of the above, you can also set up a fiduciary agreement with an individual whom you trust to manage, and then distribute, your digital assets.

Even though the steps outlined above may sound simple, they are not. Rather, each one is complex and, without the necessary legal knowledge, going through these steps will be very difficult.

Given the fact outlined above, if you wish to protect your digital assets, you must keep in mind the steps outlined above, and work with an estate planning lawyer who can help you go through each step in the proper manner.

Speak With A Florida Estate Planning Lawyer 

You can, and should, protect your digital assets with an effective estate plan. Speak with a Florida estate planning lawyer at the Millhorn Elder Law Planning Group today and we will help protect your digital assets.

Sources:

leg.state.fl.us/Statutes/index.cfm?App_mode=Display_Statute&URL=0700-0799/0740/0740.html

floridabar.org/the-florida-bar-journal/access-to-digital-assets-floridas-new-law-for-fiduciaries-what-are-digital-assets-and-why-are-they-relevant/