Including Digital Assets in Your Estate Plan

A generation ago, an estate was a house, a bank account, and a box of paper. Today much of a life lives online: family photos in the cloud, an email account that unlocks everything else, a small crypto wallet, loyalty points, even the social media that tells your story. If you live in Key West and have never thought about who handles all of this when you are gone, you are not alone, and you are exactly who this is for.

What Counts as a Digital Asset

Digital assets fall into a few buckets:

• Sentimental: photos, videos, and documents stored in cloud accounts.
• Financial: cryptocurrency, online brokerage logins, PayPal or Venmo balances, and reward points.
• Operational: email and password managers that act as keys to everything else.
• Identity: social media, blogs, and online businesses you may run from the Keys.

Florida Has a Law for This

Florida adopted the Flues-equivalent framework known as the Florida Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act. In plain terms, it gives your personal representative, trustee, or agent under a power of attorney legal authority to access certain digital assets, but only if your documents grant that authority. Without the right language, your fiduciary can be blocked by federal privacy laws and the provider’s terms of service, even when they have your password. Naming the authority in your will, trust, and durable power of attorney is what makes access enforceable.

The Provider’s Tools Come First

Many platforms now offer their own succession tools, and under the Florida act these often take priority over your other documents. Apple’s Legacy Contact, Google’s Inactive Account Manager, and Facebook’s legacy contact let you name who can step in. Setting these up is fifteen minutes of work that can spare your family weeks of frustration. If you set one of these, make sure it does not contradict your written plan.

Crypto Is Different and Unforgiving

Cryptocurrency deserves special care. If no one knows the wallet exists or the keys to open it, the value is simply gone, with no bank to call and no court that can recover it. You do not have to write private keys into your will, where they would become a public record in probate. Instead, leave clear, secure instructions, often through a password manager or a sealed document, that tell your fiduciary what exists and where to find access. Reference it in your plan without exposing the keys themselves.

Build a Living Inventory

Create a simple, secure list of your accounts, what each is for, and how access is granted, then keep it updated. Store passwords in a reputable password manager rather than on a sticky note by the kitchen window. Tell a trusted person that the inventory exists and how to reach it. The goal is not to hand out passwords today, but to make sure the right person can find them later.

Talk to a Florida Attorney

Digital assets are easy to overlook precisely because they are invisible. A Florida estate planning attorney serving the Key West area can add the authorizing language to your will, trust, and durable power of attorney so your fiduciary can act without hitting a legal wall. This article is general information, not legal advice; please consult a licensed Florida attorney about your particular circumstances.