Your Digital Life Is Part of Your Estate: California Rules for Online Accounts and Cryptocurrency

Most families discover the problem the same way. Someone passes away, and within a week a family member is sitting at a kitchen table with a laptop, trying to close an account, retrieve photographs, or simply find out what subscriptions are still being charged to a card. The password is unknown. The account recovery process asks for a phone that is no longer in service. The help page says the account cannot be transferred.

This is not a technology problem. It is an estate planning problem, and California has a statute that addresses it directly. Understanding how that statute works, and what it does not do, is one of the more useful things a family can take care of in advance.

California has a law for this

California adopted the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, which appears in Probate Code sections 870 through 884. In plain terms, it creates a legal pathway for a fiduciary, meaning an executor, a trustee, an agent under a power of attorney, or a conservator, to reach the digital accounts of the person they are serving.

The law covers what most people would expect: email, photo storage, social media, cloud documents, domain names, loyalty and rewards programs, and online financial accounts. It applies to the account itself and to the information in it. It does not, on its own, transfer ownership of anything, and it does not override federal privacy law. What it does is give a custodian, meaning the company that holds the account, a defined process to follow instead of a blanket refusal.

The order of priority is the part most people get wrong

Probate Code section 873 sets up a three-step order that decides which instruction controls. It is worth reading slowly, because the result surprises people.

• First, the online tool. If a platform offers its own tool that lets you name someone to receive your account or direct that it be deleted, and that tool lets you change your choice at any time, your instruction there controls. It overrides a contrary direction in your will, trust, or power of attorney.
• Second, your estate planning documents. If you have not used an online tool, or the platform does not offer one, then what you say in your will, trust, power of attorney, or other record controls.
• Third, the terms of service. Your direction under either of the first two steps overrides a contrary provision in the platform’s user agreement.

The practical consequence is worth stating plainly. A legacy contact setting you clicked through years ago, on a platform you barely use, can quietly outrank the trust you signed last month. This is not a defect in your estate plan. It is how the statute is written, and it is why a thorough plan includes a review of the settings themselves, not only the documents.

A list of accounts is easier to get than the contents

The statute draws a line that explains most of the frustration families run into. Probate Code section 877 covers the catalogue of electronic communications, meaning the record of who communicated with whom and when, along with other digital assets that are not message content. A personal representative can request that catalogue by supplying a written request, a certified copy of the death certificate, and certified letters or a court order. Advance consent from the person who passed away is not required for this category.

Probate Code section 876 covers the content of electronic communications, meaning the actual text of the emails and messages. Here the custodian is required to disclose only if the user consented or a court directs it. The representative must also supply a copy of the will, trust, power of attorney, or other record showing that consent, unless the user used an online tool.

That distinction is why a family can often learn that an account existed, and that it was active, while still being unable to read what is inside it. If access to the substance of an account matters, the consent needs to be in place ahead of time.

Cryptocurrency sits in a category of its own

Digital currency held on an exchange behaves somewhat like a brokerage account. There is a company holding the asset, that company has a process for death and incapacity, and a fiduciary with proper documentation can usually work through it.

Self-custody is different, and the difference is absolute. When a person holds cryptocurrency in a wallet they control, the private key or recovery phrase is the only thing that can move those assets. There is no company to petition. There is no reset process. A court order cannot compel a key that no one has. If the key is lost, the asset is generally unrecoverable, regardless of how clearly the estate plan says who should inherit it.

The planning answer is not to write the key into your estate plan. A will admitted to probate becomes a public court record, and a trust may be shared with beneficiaries and institutions. The better approach is to make sure your documents give your fiduciary clear authority over digital assets, that your fiduciary knows the assets exist, and that the access information is stored somewhere secure and separate, with instructions for reaching it. The document points to the location. The location holds the key.

What this looks like in an actual plan

A digital asset plan does not need to be complicated. In most cases it comes down to four things.

• Language in your trust, will, and power of attorney that expressly grants your fiduciary authority over digital assets and gives the consent that Probate Code section 876 requires for message contents.
• An inventory of accounts that actually matter, meaning anything holding money, anything holding irreplaceable photographs or records, anything that automatically bills a card, and anything a family business depends on.
• A deliberate pass through the legacy and inheritance settings on the platforms you use most, so that those settings match your documents rather than contradicting them.
• A secure method for storing credentials, and a person who knows how to reach it.

That inventory is also the piece most likely to go stale. Accounts open and close, phones change, and a two-factor method tied to a retired number can undo an otherwise careful plan. Reviewing the list when you review the rest of your plan keeps it useful.

Where this connects to the rest of your plan

Digital assets belong to the same family of problems as beneficiary designations and unfunded trusts. In each case, an asset that the family assumed was covered by the estate plan turns out to be controlled by something else, whether that is a form on file with a custodian, a title held in the wrong name, or a setting clicked years ago. The documents are not wrong. They simply are not what governs that particular asset.

Approaching your digital life the same way you approach the rest of your estate, as property that needs to be identified, assigned, and made reachable, keeps it from becoming the loose end that costs your family the most time.

About the Author

Goodman Estate Law is an Anaheim based estate planning firm serving families throughout Orange County, including Anaheim, Brea, Fullerton, Orange, Placentia, Santa Ana, Tustin, Villa Park, and Yorba Linda. Attorney Brett Goodman focuses his practice on wills, trusts, probate, and trust administration, and he helps families choose and prepare the right successor trustee.

Sources

• California Probate Code section 873, online tool priority: https://california.public.law/codes/probate_code_section_873
• California Probate Code section 876, disclosure of content of electronic communications: https://california.public.law/codes/probate_code_section_876
• California Probate Code section 877, disclosure of other digital assets: https://california.public.law/codes/probate_code_section_877
• California Probate Code Part 20, RUFADAA, sections 870 to 884: https://law.justia.com/codes/california/code-prob/division-2/part-20/

Goodman Estate Law

Brett J. Goodman is the founder and lead attorney at Goodman Estate Law, based in Laguna Hills, CA. The firm specializes in Estate Planning, Trust Administration, and Probate, helping individuals and families create or update wills and trusts. With a focus on personalized, compassionate, and professional guidance, Goodman Estate Law ensures clients’ assets and futures are protected during every stage of estate planning.