Including Digital Assets in Your Estate Plan

Your estate is no longer just a Palm Beach condo and a bank account. It includes email, photo libraries, cryptocurrency, loyalty points, business cloud accounts, and social media. Without planning, the people you trust may have no legal way to reach any of it. This guide covers how Florida handles digital assets, what it costs to plan for them, and the steps to take.

What Counts as a Digital Asset

Digital assets include online financial accounts, cryptocurrency and exchange holdings, email and cloud storage, digital photos and documents, domain names, monetized social or content accounts, and subscription services. Some have real monetary value; others are sentimental but irreplaceable. Both deserve a place in your plan.

The Legal Framework in Florida

Florida adopted the Fluciary Access to Digital Assets Act (Chapter 740, Florida Statutes), which sets the rules for how a personal representative, trustee, or agent under a power of attorney may access your digital accounts. Critically, the law follows a hierarchy: an online tool offered by the provider (like a legacy contact setting) controls first, then your estate documents, then the provider’s terms of service. If you do nothing, the provider’s terms of service decide, and many simply lock the account.

Granting Access the Right Way

Two things make access work. First, use the providers’ built-in tools where available to name a legacy or successor contact. Second, your Florida estate documents should expressly grant digital-asset authority. Your durable power of attorney under Chapter 709 should authorize your agent to access digital assets while you are alive, and your will or revocable trust should grant the same to your personal representative or trustee after death. Generic documents that predate this planning often lack that language.

Cryptocurrency Needs Special Handling

Crypto is unforgiving. If your heirs cannot locate the wallet and access the private keys or seed phrase, the assets are gone permanently, with no bank or court able to recover them. Document that the asset exists and ensure secure, separate instructions for access exist, never written in the will itself, since a will becomes a public record once filed in Palm Beach County probate.

The Cost and Timeline

Adding digital-asset provisions to a new will, trust, or power of attorney typically costs little beyond the documents themselves and is done at signing. The expensive scenario is the reverse: heirs hiring attorneys to petition providers for access, a process that can stretch for months and may still fail. A modest amount of upfront organization saves both money and time. Florida imposes no state estate or inheritance tax, so this is purely about access and preservation.

Build and Maintain an Inventory

Keep a current list of accounts and where to find access instructions, stored securely and updated as you open or close accounts. Tell your chosen fiduciary that the inventory exists and how to reach it. The plan only works if someone can find it.

Talk to a Florida Attorney

Digital assets fall through the cracks of older estate plans. A Palm Beach estate planning attorney can update your power of attorney, will, and trust to grant the right authority under Florida’s digital assets law. This article is general information, not legal advice for your particular estate.