Kansas & Missouri Estate Planning

Post-Mortem Digital Asset Planning In Overland Park, KS

Have you noticed more and more articles popping up about your “digital assets”? When the background chatter in the media finally catches your attention about something, that usually is a sign to start paying attention whether you live in Overland Park or Anchorage.

Proper planning means planning for all the "lives" you lead, whether your life lived in the "flesh" or your life lived in "paper" (i.e., your accounts and records, to include contracts). In the brave new world of the current millenium, however, you live much of your life on the internet.

Your online life requires that information about your digital assets and accounts (especially passwords) must be included as part of your comprehensive estate plan. In turn, this information must be kept up-to-date and made available to your executors (also known as personal representatives), financial agents and trustees.

Likely, the digital age will get only more complex. Forbes recently addressed this subject of digital assets in the context of postmortem planning in an article titled “Protect Digital Assets After Your Death.”

From simple email accounts to Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest and then all the way to investment and banking sites, each of these aspects of your online life contains information that can be of immeasurable value economically or sentimentally.

For example, what about your iTunes music collection or Kindle book collection? On the other hand, if your digital information is not secured postmortem, then it could become a liability in terms of identity theft.

Do not expect any help at common law either. These are largely uncharted legal waters. In fact, internet companies themselves are only just now starting to address this issue.

Bottom line: without a comprehensive list of accounts and passwords, executors, trustees and even heirs might have a hard time accessing, continuing and/or closing your accounts.

Remember: When making your financial, tax and estate plans, don't go it alone. Be sure to engage competent professional counsel.

For more information about estate planning in Overland Park, KS, and to download free tools to help you organize your estate, visit my estate planning website.

Reference: Kiplinger (May 2013) “Protect Digital Assets After Your Death”

Planning For Your Virtual Estate Assets Online And In Overland Park, KS

We live our lives today on the internet and in the cloud in ever more pervasive ways. This should not come as a surprise. After all, most of us walk around with the internet in our pocket 24/7 (and soon we may wear it as headgear, for those watching Google glasses with interest).

What happens to our virtual life when our physical life is over in Overland Park? What happens to everything on the cloud when you die?

From your personal information to Facebook accounts to iTunes collections, so much of our "lives" exists online. Until recently, there have been few solutions to the meticulous record required to keep to keep everything straight, let alone remembered.

Recently, The Wall Street Journal reported in an article titled “Google Lets Users Plan ‘Digital Afterlife’ By Naming Heirs” that Google has become amongst the first and likely the largest company to offer users a proactive digital-estate planning tool - the “Inactive Account Manager.”

The important take away is the importance of the planning. What about your other accounts and bits of data snaking across the web? What plans have you made to document your virtual life into the afterlife?

 

Remember: When making your financial, tax and estate plans, don't go it alone. Be sure to engage competent professional counsel.

For more information about estate planning in Overland Park, KS, and to download free tools to help you organize your estate, visit my estate planning website.

 

Reference: The Wall Street Journal (April 11, 2013) “Google Lets Users Plan ‘Digital Afterlife’ By Naming Heirs”

Digital Assets, Digital Estate Planning

We live in a digital world. This is a world void of paper but steeped to overflowing with information. Nevertheless, we still tend to think of assets in terms of "real things," as 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 old 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.

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

Have You Protected Your “Virtual” Property?

The digital revolution has meant that we don't live like we used to. For example, fewer of us could live outside of a wifi hotspot, 4G network, or computer screen for longer than a couple hours.

Not surprisingly, this revolution (and our place in it) has not been followed by an evolution in estate law to accomodate our new virtual, digital property interests.

Dealing with digital assets can be a tricky business, often in ways that aren't readily apparent. Nevertheless, digital assets are both vital and newsworthy topics for estate planning. For example, consider an article by SmartMoney titled "Protecting You Virtual Estate" and the similar article by The Wall Street Journal titled "With Estate Planning, Don’t Forget Virtual Assets." Both articles are worthy of your attention.

Digital assets can range from personal data held in social websites to intellectual property, or even domain names. Then again, and more importantly, a growing majority of people do their banking, investing, and tax-paying online. Is this starting to hit closer to home now?

Some aspects of our digital lives simply need real-world planning, especially because few states have laws in place to account for the postmortem transfer of digital assets. Even if you're not a tech guru with websites and special online projects, you wouldn't want valuable information to be lost to your heirs.

If you have a digital presence, then you must plan accordingly.

Reference:

SmartMoney (July 25, 2012), "Protecting You Virtual Estate"

The Wall Street Journal (July 28, 2012) "With Estate Planning, Don’t Forget Virtual Assets."