Preparing a digital will

Posted on 31 May 2007 at 11:32

If you want your family to have access to your online/email accounts and PCs after you die, they should be listed on your will along with your other assets. Lawyers in the US are advising clients to list items as granular as their iTunes music collection, and who they should be bequeathed to. In the same way as your family needs a spare set of house keys, they also need the passwords to your accounts and computers.

Listing passwords on your will isn't a good idea, however, because every time those passwords change the will would need to be amended, which involves both witnesses and costs. Instead, it's recommended that an executor is given instructions to a list of accounts and passwords - either paper or electronic - which is stored in a safe place.

"The person who makes a will needs to give information to their executors as to how they can deal with his affairs," says solicitor Richard Grosberg. "If all the relevant information is on a computer file that's password protected, it's one of those cases of 'open this envelope in the event of my death'. All of which is fine, of course, provided they remember to update that information when they change their passwords."

Author: Barry Collins