Your Growing Digital Estate - why we worry
A good article from The Student Lawyer website www.thestudentlawyer.com
(The choice for aspiring lawyers and us)
Read the entire article here
Digital Estate Planning-Is Google your Next Estate Planner?
This article picks up
on a discussion with Jamie Hopkins who is Assistant Professor of Taxation at
New York Life Center for Retirement Income about the challenges facing
traditional estate planning in relation to the disposition of digital
electronic assets
…”the unique nature of digital assets,
coupled with the fact that many digital assets will long outlive their owners,
presents new challenges to traditional estate planning techniques…”
While many people do not
have an estate plan in place for the disposition of their traditional assets,
even fewer have a specifically designed digital estate plan to manage their
digital assets upon death. By the end of 2012, almost 30 million Facebook accounts
had outlived their owners, but only three million had been memorialised [4] for
their deceased owners. This leaves millions of photographs, private messages,
and other digital assets stored on the deceased’s Facebook account, which is
inaccessible to his or her family and friends.[5] These forgotten pages become
a virtual shrine, creating ‘a pixilated Dorian Gray, colored by iPhone photos,
‘pokes’, and ‘LOLs’ — possibly for an eternity.’[6] As such, the unique nature
of digital assets, coupled with the fact that many digital assets will long
outlive their owners, present new challenges to traditional estate planning
techniques, requiring more complex planning techniques than previously used for
the disposition and management of traditional estates.
What will happen if you or one of
your loved ones sets up all of their accounts online but the access information
is not shared? A family already grieving is subject to even further distress.
The last thing you or your family need is a time of grief is the frustration
and potential financial loss because proper digital estate planning was not
considered especially in light of the fact that there are unique issues that
plague digital assets like ownership and transferability.
Read on and make a plan
PS LegacyTracker provides
for digital estate planning
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