New York Estate Planning Attorneys Explain The Rules
A generation ago, an estate plan addressed a house, a bank account, and perhaps a life insurance policy. Today, a person's most significant property often lives entirely online. Photographs, cryptocurrency, email archives, and social media accounts now sit alongside real estate and retirement funds. Together they form part of a complete New York estate plan. Leaving these assets unaddressed can create real complications for the people left behind.
Our New York estate planning attorneys at Williams Law Group, LLC help clients throughout Westchester County and the surrounding region. We help them think through digital property with the same care given to any other asset. A photo library or a cryptocurrency wallet can hold both financial and sentimental value. New York law now offers a specific framework for handling both categories.
What Counts As A Digital Asset In A New York Estate Plan?
Digital assets take many forms, and many clients underestimate how much of their property now exists only online rather than in a filing cabinet. A thorough estate plan should account for the full range of accounts and holdings a person accumulates over a lifetime. Common categories include:
- Financial and payment accounts: Online banking logins, PayPal or Venmo balances, and investment or brokerage accounts accessed exclusively through a web portal.
- Cryptocurrency and digital wallets: Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other blockchain-based holdings, along with the private keys or seed phrases required to access them.
- Email and cloud storage: Email archives, cloud-backed photo libraries, and documents stored with providers such as Google or Apple.
- Social media and online identity: Facebook, Instagram, and other profiles that may hold sentimental photographs, messages or a following built over years.
- Business and creative assets: Domain names, monetized blogs, online stores, and digital intellectual property tied to a person's livelihood.
Each category above raises its own distinct access and ownership questions worth considering early on. A comprehensive estate plan should identify which categories actually apply to a given client. Digital property should never become an afterthought once everything else has already been decided.
How Does New York Law Address Fiduciary Access To Digital Assets?
New York addresses this issue through Article 13-A of the Estates, Powers and Trusts Law. This is the state's version of the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act. This law creates a structured system for deciding who may access a person's digital accounts after death or incapacity.
Article 13-A establishes an order of priority for a person's directions. An online tool set up directly with a provider, such as a designated legacy contact, generally controls over contrary instructions in a will, trust, or power of attorney. When no online direction exists, instructions in those estate planning documents can govern disclosure.
This priority system means an outdated online setting can sometimes override instructions contained in a person's estate planning documents. A forgotten legacy setting inside an account could take precedence over contrary instructions drafted later.
Does This Law Decide Who Inherits A Digital Asset?
Accessing a digital asset and determining who ultimately inherits it are two different questions. Article 13-A generally addresses when and how a fiduciary or designated recipient may access and manage digital assets and account information. It does not serve as the law governing the distribution of a decedent's property.
Who ultimately receives a digital asset is generally determined by the decedent’s estate plan and the nature of the asset. A will, trust, beneficiary designation, or applicable intestacy law may determine who inherits cryptocurrency, digital artwork, an interest in an online business, or other property, just as those tools may determine who receives other assets in an estate.
For example, suppose Daniel owned a collection of valuable digital artwork that he maintained through an online platform. After his death, Article 13-A may provide his fiduciary with a framework for obtaining access to the relevant digital assets and account information, subject to the statute's requirements and any applicable terms of service. Determining who ultimately receives the artwork or its proceeds, however, is a separate question governed by Daniel's estate plan and applicable law.
Why Does Cryptocurrency Present Unique Estate Planning Challenges?
Self-custodied cryptocurrency presents a particular estate planning challenge because there may be no financial institution or custodian that a fiduciary can simply contact for access. With a self-custodied wallet, the owner generally retains control of the cryptocurrency through private keys, which may be protected by a seed phrase or other authentication information. If those credentials are lost or cannot be located, the cryptocurrency may be effectively inaccessible.
This creates an important distinction between legal authority and practical access. A fiduciary may have legal authority to administer a decedent’s digital assets, but that authority does not itself provide the fiduciary with the private keys or other credentials necessary to access a self-custodied wallet. New York’s Article 13-A provides a framework for fiduciary access to digital assets, but it does not eliminate the practical challenges associated with self-custodied cryptocurrency.
Estate planning for cryptocurrency should therefore address both legal authority and practical access. The plan should provide a secure way for the fiduciary to identify the existence of the cryptocurrency and locate the information necessary to access it, without unnecessarily exposing sensitive credentials in the estate planning documents themselves. The goal is to ensure that a valuable digital asset does not become inaccessible simply because the individual who knew how to access it is no longer available.
How Should A New York Estate Plan Address Digital Assets?
An effective estate plan should explicitly grant fiduciary authority over digital assets. This authority should appear within a will, trust or power of attorney document. Explicitly addressing digital assets can provide clearer direction and help avoid disputes or access problems later.
A private, regularly updated inventory of digital accounts and access information should be maintained separately from the will itself. A will may become part of the public court record when it is offered for probate, making it an inappropriate place to include passwords, private keys, seed phrases, or other sensitive credentials. Instead, the estate plan should provide a secure way for the appropriate fiduciary to locate the information needed to access and administer the assets.
Reviewing online legacy settings alongside formal estate planning documents helps prevent the two from working against one another over time. A single overlooked setting can undo carefully drafted language found elsewhere in the plan.
Planning For What Happens To Your Digital Life
Your photographs, your digital accounts, and your cryptocurrency holdings represent real value and real memories. Many estate plans still treat them as an afterthought despite this reality. An estate plan built only around a house and bank accounts no longer reflects how most people actually live today.
Our New York estate planning attorneys at Williams Law Group, LLC can review your specific accounts and holdings. We can then build language into your estate plan that gives your fiduciary clear, enforceable authority under New York law. Reach out to our team to start this important conversation about your digital accounts and other valuable assets.
"Amazing law firm. I would recommend the Williams Law Group to anyone. Everyone is always very friendly and helpful. They helped me and my family and were always there for us." – Monika W., ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐