Digital Assets and Online Accounts in Your Florida Estate Plan

Digital assets in a Florida estate plan are the online accounts, files, cryptocurrency, and electronic records you own or control, together with the legal authority you grant a personal representative, trustee, or agent to manage them after death or incapacity. Florida governs this authority through the Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, codified at Chapter 740 of the Florida Statutes. Without clear instructions, your loved ones may be locked out of accounts that hold real financial value and irreplaceable memories.

I have sat across the table from too many surviving spouses in the Keys who knew their late husband had “money in some app” but had no password, no recovery email access, and no legal right to ask the company for help. In a blended family, that fog gets thicker. The PayPal balance, the crypto wallet, the photo library spanning two marriages and several stepchildren, the Airbnb listing for the Big Pine Key cottage, the domain name for a small charter business, the frequent-flyer miles, the email account that holds the password reset for everything else, those things do not pass automatically to anyone. Someone has to be given the keys, in writing, before they are needed.

What Counts as a Digital Asset Under Florida Law

Florida’s Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act defines a “digital asset” broadly as an electronic record in which an individual has a right or interest. That definition is intentionally wide. It does not mean the underlying account, the agreement with the company, or the device; it means the electronic content and the rights attached to it. In practical terms, the digital assets that matter in a Keys estate plan fall into a few buckets.

• Financial accounts and stored value — online banking, brokerage and trading apps, PayPal, Venmo, Cash App, and gift-card or store balances.
• Cryptocurrency and digital tokens — Bitcoin, Ethereum, stablecoins, and NFTs held on exchanges like Coinbase or in self-custody wallets secured by private keys or seed phrases.
• Income-producing online accounts — Etsy or eBay stores, Amazon seller accounts, short-term rental listings, monetized YouTube or other content channels, and any web domain tied to a business.
• Loyalty and rewards programs — airline miles, hotel points, and credit-card rewards, some of which are transferable at death and some of which are forfeited.
• Communications and personal content — email, text and chat archives, cloud photo libraries, social media, and document storage on Google Drive, iCloud, or Dropbox.
• Devices and the data on them — phones, laptops, and external drives, which are tangible property but often the only gateway to the accounts above.

Notice what is missing from any tidy list: control. You may own the Bitcoin, but if the seed phrase died with you, the asset is effectively gone. No statute can recover a key that was never written down. That is why digital-asset planning is part documents and part logistics.

How Florida’s Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act Works

Chapter 740 sets up a clear order of priority that determines who can reach your digital assets and how. Understanding the hierarchy is what separates a plan that works from one that fails the first time it is tested.

The three-tier priority system

1. Online tools first. If a platform offers its own legacy or access feature, what the statute calls an “online tool,” and you use it, your choice there generally overrides anything in your will or trust. Apple’s Legacy Contact, Google’s Inactive Account Manager, and Facebook’s Legacy Contact are the common examples. A direction made through one of these tools controls.
2. Your estate planning documents second. If you did not use an online tool, or the platform does not offer one, the authority you grant in your will, trust, power of attorney, or other written record governs. This is where a properly drafted plan does its work.
3. The provider’s terms-of-service last. If you left no online-tool direction and no document language, the company’s terms-of-service agreement decides, and most of those agreements default to denying access or simply deleting the account after a period of inactivity.

The lesson is blunt. Silence does not mean your family inherits access. Silence means a Silicon Valley terms-of-service agreement, written to limit the company’s liability, decides the fate of your accounts. Florida law gives you the power to override that default, but only if you exercise it.

Disclosure of content versus a catalogue of accounts

Chapter 740 draws an important line between the content of electronic communications, the actual body of your emails and messages, and a catalogue of communications, meaning the metadata: who you communicated with and when. A fiduciary can more readily obtain the catalogue. To get the content itself, the law generally requires that you specifically consented to disclosure, often by lawful consent in your estate documents. That distinction is why generic “handle my affairs” language is not enough. The grant of authority needs to name digital assets and electronic communications expressly.

Why Blended Families and Second Marriages Need This Most

On Florida’s editorial frontier of estate planning, the families I serve are rarely the storybook nuclear unit. They are second and third marriages, his kids and her kids, a stepchild who functions as a daughter and a biological child who has not called in years. Digital assets expose every fault line in that structure.

Consider a common Keys scenario. A husband remarries at 58, brings two adult children from his first marriage, and shares a home with his new wife. His brokerage app, his crypto, and his email all sit under his personal login. If he names his new wife as personal representative but says nothing about digital access, his adult children may suspect she is hiding assets she cannot actually reach. If he gives his son the passwords informally but names his wife in the will, he has created a conflict between the person with the documents and the person with the keys. Neither outcome honors his intent.

A few principles tend to keep the peace:

• Match the keyholder to the document. The person you authorize in writing to access digital assets should be the same person your overall plan trusts, or at minimum someone accountable to that person.
• Separate sentiment from money. You can let a stepdaughter inherit the photo archive while directing the financial accounts to your spouse and biological children. Digital assets can be divided just like tangible ones.
• Address the email account deliberately. Whoever controls the primary email controls the password resets for nearly everything else. In a blended family, that single account can become a point of leverage. Decide who gets it on purpose.
• Use beneficiary designations and trusts to bypass conflict. The more value you can route through a revocable trust or a payable-on-death designation, the less your heirs must fight over login credentials. A well-structured can hold or direct many digital assets and keep them out of a contested probate.

Older clients with second spouses also intersect with elder-law concerns, especially around incapacity rather than death. A durable power of attorney that expressly covers digital assets lets a trusted agent manage online finances if you can no longer do so yourself, a planning overlap our colleagues describe well in their . The principle travels: incapacity planning and digital access belong in the same conversation.

Building Digital Assets Into Your Florida Documents

There is no single “digital asset will” in Florida. Instead, the authority gets woven through the instruments you already need. Here is how the pieces fit.

Your will and personal representative

Your last will and testament should grant your personal representative express authority to access, manage, distribute, and dispose of your digital assets and the content of your electronic communications, with specific reference to Chapter 740. That same will appoints the personal representative who will work through Florida probate if probate is required. Tangible devices, the laptop and phone, can be left through the will too, which matters because they are often the access point.

Your revocable trust

For assets you would rather keep out of probate, a revocable living trust can hold or direct digital property and name a trustee with digital-asset authority. Crypto held in self-custody, domain names, and monetized accounts are frequently better managed through a trust than a will, because the trustee can act immediately without waiting for the court to issue letters of administration. For families splitting time between the Keys and the Northeast, the Florida and New York estate-planning teams coordinate this regularly; you can review the Florida office’s for how trust-based plans are structured here.

Your durable power of attorney

A Florida durable power of attorney under Chapter 709 should specifically authorize your agent to access and manage digital assets during your lifetime if you become incapacitated. General language will not do it; Florida’s power-of-attorney statute requires that certain authorities be specifically enumerated and separately initialed.

The asset inventory and access plan

This is the part most people skip and the part that actually rescues families. Separate from your legal documents, maintain a current, secure inventory of your digital life. It should never live inside your will, because a will becomes a public record once filed. Instead:

• List your significant accounts by platform, not by password, in a document your fiduciary can locate.
• Store actual credentials in a reputable password manager, and tell your fiduciary how to reach the master vault.
• Write down cryptocurrency seed phrases and store them offline, in a safe or safe-deposit box, never in email or cloud notes.
• Configure each platform’s native online tool, Apple Legacy Contact, Google Inactive Account Manager, Facebook Legacy Contact, since those directions legally come first.
• Review the inventory annually and after any major life event, because accounts and passwords change far faster than wills do.

Common Mistakes I See in the Keys

A few errors recur often enough to name them.

Sharing passwords as the whole plan. Informally handing a spouse your logins feels efficient, but it gives them no legal authority, violates most terms-of-service agreements, and collapses the moment a company locks the account or forces a password reset to a phone they cannot access.

Putting passwords in the will. A will is filed with the court and becomes public. Credentials belong in a secure manager referenced by your documents, not printed in them.

Forgetting the seed phrase is the asset. With self-custodied crypto, there is no customer-service line and no court order that recovers lost keys. If the phrase is not preserved and findable, the value is permanently destroyed.

Ignoring the email account. The primary inbox is the master key to the digital kingdom. Leaving it unaddressed undermines every other instruction.

Assuming the spouse automatically inherits everything. Florida’s homestead and elective-share rules protect a surviving spouse for certain property, but they do not hand over login access or override a platform’s terms-of-service. Digital access must be granted, not assumed, which is exactly why coordinating digital assets with your will and trust documents matters.

When to Call a Florida Estate Planning Attorney

If you own cryptocurrency, run any kind of online business, have meaningful value in trading or payment apps, or are navigating a second marriage with children from a prior relationship, your digital assets deserve deliberate planning, not an afterthought. The statutes are favorable in Florida; the Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act gives you real authority to direct what happens. But the law only helps the person who used it. An experienced attorney makes sure your will, trust, and power of attorney all speak the same language, that your access plan is current and secure, and that your blended family is left with clarity instead of a password-recovery scavenger hunt. When you are ready to put it in place, you can schedule a consultation to map your digital estate alongside the rest of your plan.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does my Florida will give my family access to my online accounts?

Only if it says so expressly. Under Florida’s Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (Chapter 740), your will should specifically grant your personal representative authority to access, manage, and dispose of your digital assets and the content of your electronic communications. Generic language is not enough, and if a platform’s own online tool (like Apple Legacy Contact or Google Inactive Account Manager) was set up, that direction comes first.

What happens to my cryptocurrency in Florida if I don't plan for it?

If your crypto is self-custodied and the private key or seed phrase is lost, no statute, court order, or attorney can recover it. The asset is permanently inaccessible. Plan ahead by recording the seed phrase offline in a safe or safe-deposit box, referencing its location in your estate plan, and granting a fiduciary express authority over digital assets. Crypto is often best directed through a revocable trust so a trustee can act without waiting on probate.

Why do blended families need special digital-asset planning?

Second marriages with children from prior relationships create competing interests over both money and memories. The person holding the passwords may differ from the person named in the will, which breeds suspicion and conflict. Thoughtful planning matches the authorized keyholder to the trusted fiduciary, separates sentimental content like photo libraries from financial accounts, and deliberately assigns the primary email account that controls password resets for everything else.

Should I write my passwords in my will?

No. A will filed in Florida probate becomes a public record, so passwords placed in it are exposed. Instead, store credentials in a reputable password manager, record cryptocurrency seed phrases offline, and keep a secure account inventory that your fiduciary can locate. Your legal documents grant the authority; the password manager and inventory provide the actual access.

Can my agent under a power of attorney manage my online accounts if I become incapacitated?

Yes, but only if your Florida durable power of attorney specifically authorizes it. Florida’s power-of-attorney statute (Chapter 709) requires certain powers, including digital-asset authority, to be expressly enumerated and separately initialed. A general grant will not let your agent reach your online financial accounts, so the digital-asset language must be built in when the document is drafted.