Digital Assets and Online Accounts in Your Florida Estate Plan

Digital assets in a Florida estate plan are the electronic records and online accounts you own or control—email, cloud storage, social media, cryptocurrency, domain names, customer databases, and business software logins—along with the legal authority you grant a fiduciary to access them after death or incapacity. In Florida, that authority is governed by the Florida Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (Chapter 740, Florida Statutes), which lets your personal representative, trustee, or agent reach those accounts only if your planning documents and the provider’s tools permit it. For a Palm Beach business owner, getting this right is the difference between a clean succession and a frozen company.

I have sat across the table from too many surviving spouses and business partners who discovered, weeks into probate, that the most valuable parts of the estate were locked inside an account no one could open. The QuickBooks file. The Shopify store generating revenue every hour. The domain that is the brand. None of it transfers on a deed, and most of it does not transfer through a will unless you plan for it deliberately.

What counts as a digital asset under Florida law

Section 740.002, Florida Statutes, defines a digital asset broadly as an electronic record in which an individual has a right or interest. That definition is wider than most people assume. It is not just your Gmail. For a closed business or a high-net-worth family, the inventory usually spans several categories.

• Communication accounts — email, text-message archives, and messaging apps. These often hold the only record of vendor agreements and informal deals.
• Financial and payment platforms — online banking, PayPal, Stripe, Venmo, brokerage logins, and merchant-services dashboards.
• Business operations — accounting software, CRM and customer databases, payroll portals, e-commerce stores, and cloud-hosted files.
• Cryptocurrency and digital wallets — Bitcoin, Ethereum, stablecoins, and NFTs, which are effectively unrecoverable without the private keys or seed phrase.
• Intellectual and brand property — domain names, websites, social-media handles, and copyrighted content with monetizable value.
• Loyalty and stored value — airline miles, hotel points, and gift-card balances, some of which are transferable.

One distinction matters more than any other. Florida law separates the catalogue of an account (the to/from, dates, and metadata of messages) from the content of electronic communications (the actual words inside). A fiduciary can generally access the catalogue by default, but content is protected by federal privacy law and is released only if you affirmatively consent. That single rule explains why a well-drafted plan reads the way it does.

How the Florida Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act works

Florida adopted the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, codified at Chapter 740. The statute creates a clear hierarchy that decides who controls your accounts and on what terms. Understanding the order is the whole game.

1. Online tools come first. If a provider offers a built-in setting—Google’s Inactive Account Manager, Apple’s Legacy Contact, Facebook’s legacy contact—and you use it, that designation overrides your will and trust. It is the highest authority the statute recognizes.
2. Your estate-planning documents come second. If you did not use an online tool, then the directions in your will, trust, power of attorney, or other record control. This is where a Florida attorney earns their keep, because the document must expressly grant access to content, not just assets.
3. The provider’s terms of service come last. Absent any direction from you, the click-through agreement you accepted years ago governs—and most of those agreements say nothing transfers, or that the account simply terminates at death.

The practical lesson is uncomfortable but simple. If you do nothing, the terms of service win, and your fiduciary may be stonewalled. The law gives you the levers; you have to pull them while you are alive and competent.

Why a will alone is not enough

A will speaks at death and only after it is admitted to probate, which can take weeks. By then a social-media account may be memorialized, a subscription service may have suspended billing, and a business’s cloud files may be drifting toward deletion under an inactivity policy. Worse, a generic will that says “I leave my property to my spouse” does not contain the express consent to disclose electronic communication content that Chapter 740 and federal law require. The fiduciary gets the asset on paper and a locked door in practice. For the mechanics of probate timing in our state, see our overview of Florida probate, and revisit your will to confirm it actually addresses digital property.

Special stakes for Palm Beach business owners

Succession planning for a closely held company is where digital assets stop being a convenience and become the enterprise itself. A landscaping company in Wellington, a marketing agency in West Palm Beach, a medical practice in Boca—each runs on logins. When the owner dies or is incapacitated, the question is not philosophical. Can payroll run on Friday? Can the merchant account still accept payments? Does anyone know the seed phrase for the wallet holding company crypto reserves?

There is also a structural trap. Many entrepreneurs register business accounts under a personal email or personal name. When that owner dies, the “business” asset is legally tangled with a “personal” account that the terms of service may freeze. Clean planning separates the two and routes business digital assets through the entity and, where appropriate, through a trust rather than through individual probate. If you have not paired your digital-asset plan with the right ownership vehicle, that conversation belongs alongside your broader strategy, because a trustee can step in instantly without waiting for a court to act.

Incapacity is the bigger risk

Owners fixate on death and underestimate incapacity. A stroke, a serious accident, or advancing cognitive decline can take you offline overnight, and your accounts do not know you are sick—they keep billing, expiring, and locking. Under Chapter 740, your durable power of attorney must specifically authorize your agent to access digital assets, including content, or the agent has no clearer path than a stranger. Planning for diminished capacity, especially for older founders, overlaps heavily with tools that keep both the person and the business protected while you are still living.

Building digital assets into the plan: a working checklist

Here is the sequence I walk Palm Beach clients through. None of it is exotic; the value is in actually doing it and keeping it current.

• Create an inventory. List every account that has financial, sentimental, or operational value. Do not write passwords in the will—a will becomes a public court record. Reference where credentials live instead.
• Use a reputable password manager. A single encrypted vault with an emergency-access feature solves the access problem more elegantly than any legal clause, because it survives provider policies entirely.
• Set the online tools. Activate Google Inactive Account Manager, Apple Legacy Contact, and Facebook legacy contact now. Remember: these override your documents, so keep them consistent with your overall plan.
• Update the legal documents. Your will, trust, and durable power of attorney each need express Chapter 740 language granting access to the catalogue and the content of electronic communications.
• Plan cryptocurrency separately. Crypto dies with its keys. Document the existence of wallets and the secure location of seed phrases through a method your fiduciary can actually reach—never in a plaintext email.
• Coordinate business entities. Make sure business-critical accounts are owned by the company and that successor managers have a documented path to administrative control.
• Name a digital-savvy fiduciary. The right personal representative or trustee for digital assets is not always your oldest child; it is whoever can responsibly handle technical access.

Common mistakes I see in Florida estates

The errors repeat with remarkable consistency. People list passwords directly in a will, exposing them in the public record. They set an online tool that quietly contradicts the trust, creating a fight over which controls. They name a fiduciary who is honest but technologically lost. And the most expensive mistake of all—they tell no one the cryptocurrency exists, so a six-figure wallet vanishes into mathematical oblivion the moment the only person who knew the seed phrase is gone.

Florida-specific planning also has to account for our homestead and probate rules, which interact with digital business interests in ways a generic online template will miss. If your operations or family span both Florida and New York, coordinating counsel in both states keeps the plan consistent; our colleagues handle the side while the New York office covers northern assets and trusts.

When to bring in an attorney

If you own a business, hold cryptocurrency, control valuable domains or brand accounts, or simply want your family spared a months-long scavenger hunt, this is not a do-it-yourself project. The statutory language has to be precise, the online tools have to match the documents, and the whole structure has to be revisited as your accounts and your company evolve. A short planning session now prevents the frozen-account nightmare later. When you are ready to map your digital and business assets into a coherent plan, contact our Palm Beach estate planning team.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does my Florida will automatically give my executor access to my online accounts?

No. A will alone usually is not enough. Under the Florida Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (Chapter 740), your personal representative can typically see the catalogue of an account but not the content of electronic communications unless your documents expressly grant that consent. Many providers also default to terminating accounts at death, so the will must specifically authorize digital-asset access and you should pair it with the provider’s online tools.

What is the Florida Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act?

It is Florida’s version of the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, codified in Chapter 740, Florida Statutes. It sets a three-tier priority: a provider’s online tool (like Google Inactive Account Manager) controls first, your estate-planning documents control next, and the provider’s terms of service control last. The law lets fiduciaries access digital assets only when one of those tiers grants permission.

How do I make sure my heirs can access my cryptocurrency?

Cryptocurrency is only recoverable with the private keys or seed phrase, and no court order can reproduce them. Document that the wallets exist, store the seed phrase through a secure method your fiduciary can actually reach (such as an encrypted password manager with emergency access or a sealed instruction kept with your attorney), and never leave keys in plaintext email. Reference the location in your plan rather than writing keys into a will, which becomes public.

What happens to my business's online accounts if I become incapacitated?

If your durable power of attorney does not specifically authorize digital-asset access under Chapter 740, your agent may be locked out just like a stranger. Accounts keep billing and can suspend for inactivity. Business owners should ensure critical accounts are owned by the company, name a successor with documented administrative access, and grant explicit digital-asset authority in the power of attorney so operations continue without a court order.

Should digital assets go through a will or a trust in Florida?

For business owners, a revocable trust is usually the stronger vehicle because a successor trustee can act immediately, without waiting weeks for probate, and the trust stays private. A will speaks only after it is admitted to probate, by which time accounts may be frozen or files purged. The best plans use a trust for high-value and operational digital assets, a will as backup, and a power of attorney for incapacity.