Blog Post

Who Will Inherit Your Digital Assets When You Die?

Ann Schrooten • Jan 17, 2018
Ann Schrooten

If your estate plan or other written instructions do not designate who will have access to your digital assets upon your death or incapacity, the person who is responsible for your earthly estate may have little or no access to your property in the cloud.


In the digital world we live in, most people own a trove of digital assets. From bank accounts to Facebook, PayPal and more, a significant part of our personal and financial lives is online. Digital assets can include digital photos, social media accounts, websites, emails, text messages, backups to the cloud, and the like.


In 2016, Arizona adopted the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (FAADA). Under FAADA, a fiduciary or person with legal authority (trustees, personal representatives, and agents under powers of attorney) has the ability to access and distribute the digital assets of the deceased or incapacitated person to whom they have a fiduciary duty.
  • If the company where the digital assets reside (Facebook, Google, etc.) allows the account holder to grant access to another person, the account holder's online instructions have first priority.
  • If the account holder does not name another person, the account holder may include instructions regarding digital assets in their will, trust, power of attorney, etc.
  • If the account holder takes neither of the two preceding steps, the company’s terms of service for the account will control.
If the terms of service do not address fiduciary access, FAADA requires the account custodian to provide only limited access – e.g., a catalogue of the communications showing the addresses of the sender and recipient, and the date and time the message was sent.

As a result of this law, you should include a provision in your will, trust, power of attorney, or other written document to designate who has access to your digital assets and what will happen to your digital assets upon your death or incapacity. If such a designation is not properly outlined in an estate plan or other written document, your personal representative or trustee may have limited access to your account and the assets it holds.

Therefore, it’s important to have your estate plan reviewed to make sure that your digital assets can be accessed and transferred according to your wishes. Please contact our office to schedule an appointment with one of our attorneys to review your estate plan.

More about Fitzgibbons Law Offices' estate planning and probate services.
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