A trend in estate planning that continues apace with each passing year is associated with the disposition of digital assets upon a person’s death. The reality is that an ever-growing number of people accumulate digital assets during life that require consideration when developing a comprehensive estate plan. Digital assets that warrant consideration as part of your estate typically fall into three categories; entertainment collections, social media platforms and ecommerce sites.
Digital Entertainment Collections
During the course of your lifetime, you may have invested in what amounts to a considerable entertainment collection. Most 21st-century digital entertainment collections include everything from movies to books, music, games and other virtual items.
An estate attorney routinely serves the needs of clients with physical collections of movies, books, music and so forth. As part of an estate plan, a person designates to whom or where these items are to go when that individual passes on. The fact is that digital entertainment collections can and should be included in an estate plan in the same manner.
A digital entertainment collection has a definite value. You pay for such items as movies, books and music. Over the years, what you invest in this type of collection can prove to be a decent amount of money.
Additionally, few assets may better represent who you are as a person than your digital movie, book and music collections. These are assets that not only have a monetary value but also a sentimental value as well. When meeting with an estate planning lawyer, you will want to make sure that your final plan includes directives on how your digital entertainment collection is to be handled upon your death.
Social Media Platforms
You must not overlook social media platforms as you consider working with an estate planning attorney. If you are like the majority of people in the United States today, you are somewhat active on at least one social media platform. In addition to using social media for personal purposes, you may also incorporate these platforms in your business or professional endeavors as well. Whether social media is entirely personal or partially professional in your life, real reasons exist as to why you will want to incorporate the disposition of these assets as part of your comprehensive estate plan.
The most popular social media platforms, including Facebook and Instagram, have specific protocols in place regarding the disposition of your page upon your death. These platforms permit you to designate a “legacy contact” who essentially oversees your page upon your death, with certain limitations determined by the particular social media company. You not only want to designate who is to serve as a legacy contact in regard to social media accounts in your estate plan but also do so as required at each social media site.
If you use social media as part of your business or professional endeavors, you will want to designate an individual in advance of your death as an administrator of a platform. This needs to be done via your estate plan and on an individual social media website.
Ecommerce Sites
If you have an ecommerce site of some type, this also represents an important asset that needs to be a part of your estate plan. The disposition of an ecommerce site following your passing can be undertaken as part of the way you address who will gain ownership of your business itself. Whether the entirety of your business is an ecommerce site or your efforts in ecommerce are something of a side gig, your estate plan can specifically set forth how ownership of your ecommerce site is to be determined following your death.
You can obtain more information and the legal assistance you require in regard to the final disposition of your assets by scheduling a no-obligation, no-cost initial consultation with an estate planning lawyer in New Jersey. You can reach our legal team at The Knee Law Firm by calling (201) 996-1200.