Digital Asset Inheritance: How to Legally Pass Down Crypto, Social Media, and Online Accounts

Estate planning is an essential tool for guiding how your estate will be administered, your assets transferred, and your loved ones cared for after you pass away. Most people consider assets such as real estate, physical assets, and bank accounts in their estate plan, but providing provisions for how online accounts, such as social media and cryptocurrency, will be passed down is equally important. 

Under the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA), digital assets and online accounts are typically governed not by property law, but by the terms of service agreements of the specific online platform. Therefore, it’s important to name a fiduciary who can access your accounts on your behalf if you are unable to or lose the ability to do so yourself. 

At Bresnahan, Finnegan, Cooper & Bresnahan P.C., Attorney G. Robert Cooper and his team have decades of combined experience helping individuals establish effective estate plans and draft provisions that give a fiduciary access to online accounts after they pass away.  

With offices in Oakmont and RIDC Park-O'Hara Township, Pennsylvania, the firm serves clients throughout Allegheny County and the greater Pittsburgh area. Reach out today to schedule a consultation and explore your options for legally passing down your social media and online accounts. 

Pennsylvania Law for Passing Down Online Accounts

In Pennsylvania, passing down or granting access to your online accounts is governed by the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA). This applies to email accounts, social media profiles, digital files, and virtual currency accounts, such as cryptocurrency.  

The RUFADAA lets you decide what to do with your digital assets, such as preserving them, passing them to a beneficiary or heir, or destroying them after you pass away. It also protects your accounts by preventing companies from disclosing the contents without your express consent.  

However, you will need to name a fiduciary and grant them specific permission to manage your accounts if you become incapacitated or pass away. The RUFADAA recognizes four primary types of fiduciaries: estate administrators or executors, court-appointed guardians, power of attorney agents, and trustees. By granting someone you trust with access to your online accounts, they have the legal authority to manage your account according to your instruction or with what is in your best interest. 

If you leave behind conflicting instructions, the courts will be required to follow the three-tiered system for granting access and account management, as outlined in the RUFADAA: 

1. Online tools: If you grant another person the permission to access your online accounts within the account settings themselves or enable a setting to have your account disabled or deleted, those instructions will be considered legally enforceable. 

2. Estate planning documents: If you don’t enable specific account settings, any instructions outlined in your estate plan will take effect. 

3. Terms of service instructions: If you don’t provide any instruction for how your online accounts should be managed or accessed, the specific terms of service provided by the online account will determine whether your fiduciary can access your account or digital assets. 

The terms of service for some online accounts do not allow another user to access the account without the original account holder’s express permission. Therefore, it’s essential to name a trusted person as your fiduciary, invoke the authority provided by the RUFADAA, and clearly specify your wishes for whether your online accounts should be deleted, archived, or memorialized as a legacy account. 

Provisions for Passing Down Social Media Accounts

You do not own your social media account. Instead, you hold a license to access and use the platform. Therefore, passing down your log-in credentials, whether you are incapacitated or pass away, will typically violate the platform’s terms of service. This is true for almost all social media platforms, such as Facebook, Instagram, and TikTok. 

While you cannot transfer ownership of your social media accounts, you can use built-in features, such as Facebook’s Legacy Contact tool, or legally authorize your fiduciary to close them, continue to manage them, or memorialize them. The process for passing down social media accounts follows the same process as general online accounts, as outlined in the RUFADAA. 

Provisions for Passing Down Cryptocurrency Accounts

While cryptocurrency is considered a digital asset, passing down these accounts follows slightly different steps than social media and other online accounts. To legally pass down a cryptocurrency account, you will need to organize your technical access keys and provide explicit legal consent to your fiduciary. 

1. Grant permission to access your account: Explicitly state that you are granting your fiduciary explicit permission to access your account under the RUFADAA and update your will or trust to reflect these permissions. If you have not already done so, name a digital executor who understands how to manage cryptocurrency assets and who can oversee the administration of this part of your estate. 

2. Create a separate technical inventory: Do not include your passwords or keys in your will. Instead, create a separate list of your cryptocurrency accounts on paper and include the necessary passwords, private keys, and seed phrases, and wallet addresses. Provide instructions to your digital executor for how to access this document after you pass away. 

3. Provide instructions for accessing your wallets: Some cryptocurrency platforms will not hand over passwords to your executor or transfer funds without proof of death. Other platforms do not recognize probate orders. Instead, your executor will require the correct private key to access the funds. 

4. Address inheritance taxes: Even if your cryptocurrency account is transferred outside probate, such as through a trust, it is still subject to Pennsylvania inheritance tax. The tax rate will depend on your relationship with the beneficiary. Have your executor report your digital holdings and provide a codicil to your beneficiary about their inheritance tax obligations. 

If you hold cryptocurrency assets, it’s important to provide the necessary access permissions; otherwise, you risk permanently losing your assets entirely. Our Pennsylvania estate planning attorneys can help you set up the right documents and permissions to protect your assets and legally pass them down. 

Contact an Experienced Pennsylvania Estate Planning & Probate Attorney

Whether you hold one or multiple online accounts, you must provide specific access permissions under the RUFADAA to pass them down. Without the right permissions, your executor cannot access your digital accounts or pass cryptocurrency assets to your beneficiaries. 

At Bresnahan, Finnegan, Cooper & Bresnahan P.C., Attorney G. Robert Cooper and his team have decades of combined experience helping clients take the steps needed to protect and pass down their digital assets. With offices in Oakmont and RIDC Park-O'Hara Township, Pennsylvania, the firm serves clients throughout Allegheny County and the greater Pittsburgh area. Reach out today to schedule a consultation.