Estate planning often revolves around physical assets, financial assets and other tangible goods. You may be leaving behind bank accounts, businesses, homes, vehicles, home furnishings and retirement savings.
Digital assets are also growing fairly common these days. While these are not tangible goods, they could still represent a significant amount of your wealth. Perhaps you have purchased cryptocurrency that is held in a wallet that only you can access. Or maybe you have purchased digital collections of video games and movies. How do you leave these assets to your family?
It is only possible in some cases
You can consider digital assets when you are doing your estate planning, but that does not mean that there are always options for you to use. Some assets cannot be passed down.
When it comes to cryptocurrency, for example, it is often wise to make a plan. Since access to a cryptocurrency wallet is heavily restricted, there have been situations where people pass away and their family members are unsure how to get the money out of the account. These accounts could be worth tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars, so it is important to plan in advance so that someone else can take over ownership.
But with assets like movies or video games, the most important thing is to check to see if you actually own them. In many cases, people believe they own these assets but have actually only purchased a license granting them the ability to access those digital files whenever they want. They do not actually own the files and they are not allowed to transfer the license, so it does not need to be included in an estate plan.
As you make your estate plan, considering both tangible and digital assets, be sure you know exactly what legal options you have.