Digital Assets, Digital Estate Planning - An Important Issue in Ann Arbor

If you inadvertently lock out your executor or the very person who has power of attorney over your finances, you can create a huge hassle for your family just trying to pay your bills.  Since we now live in a paperless world, they need something important – your passwords.

We live in a digital world. This is a world void of paper but steeped with overflowing information. Nevertheless, we still tend to think of assets in terms of “real things” that can be printed on paper or locked in a safety deposit box.

So, have you planned your estate to account for your “digital assets”?

If you have not, then you are leaving a big estate mess for your loved ones to clean up. This was the subject of a recent Forbes article titled “You Just Locked Out Your Executor And Made Your Estate Planning A Monumental Hassle.”

The original article offers an expansive look at all of the digital assets to consider, as well as many ways making your assets “digital” can be helpful. Here’s the most important warning from the article: to enable your beneficiaries and your executors to secure your digital assets and square away everything from bank accounts to twitter accounts, you must provide your passwords. Thereafter, the sky is the limit!

If you are a tech-savvy, then likely you can think of new ways to make technology work for you. For example, there are new services that even allow you to store your living will online, providing easy access by your doctors. Furthermore, even simple data storage capabilities become meaningful when you realize that the entire family photo collection can be turned into something every family member can “hold” and view with pleasure on demand – once it’s digitized.

Whether you’re tech-savvy or not, your digital well-being ought be secured and even leveraged if you make proper plans and take advantage of the evolving technology.

For more information about making sure your estate plan includes planning for digital assets, contact us at www.elderlawannarbor.com.

Reference: Forbes (October 18, 2012) “You Just Locked Out Your Executor And Made Your Estate Planning A Monumental Hassle”