Digital Assets and Online Accounts in Your Florida Estate Plan

Digital assets in your Florida estate plan are the electronic accounts, files, and online property you own or control — from email and cloud storage to cryptocurrency, domain names, business software logins, and social media. Under Florida’s Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (Chapter 740, Florida Statutes), the people who handle your estate can only access these assets if you grant the right authority in advance, usually through a will, trust, power of attorney, or an online tool offered by the platform. Without that authority, your executor or successor may be locked out of accounts that hold real financial and operational value.

I have sat across the table from too many surviving spouses and business partners who could see exactly where the money was — the QuickBooks file, the Stripe dashboard, the crypto wallet — and could not legally touch any of it. For a Florida business owner, that gap is not a theoretical inconvenience. It can freeze payroll, strand customer data, and stall a sale. Let’s walk through what counts, what Florida law actually permits, and how to build digital assets into a succession plan that holds up.

What Counts as a Digital Asset in Florida

The term is broader than most people assume. Florida law defines a digital asset as an electronic record in which an individual has a right or interest. That definition sweeps in things with obvious dollar value and things whose value only becomes clear after someone dies.

• Financial accounts: cryptocurrency and exchange accounts, PayPal, Venmo, Stripe, brokerage logins, and online banking.
• Business operations: domain names, hosting accounts, the company website, customer relationship management (CRM) systems, accounting software, point-of-sale systems, and payment processors.
• Intellectual and creative property: e-commerce storefronts, monetized YouTube or social channels, online courses, photo libraries, and code repositories.
• Personal and communication accounts: email, cloud storage (Google Drive, iCloud, Dropbox), password managers, and social media.
• Loyalty and miscellaneous value: airline miles, credit card points, and gaming or marketplace balances.

One important distinction runs through Chapter 740: the law separates the content of electronic communications (the actual text of your emails and private messages) from the catalogue (the metadata — who you emailed, when, and the existence of an account). A fiduciary almost always needs explicit, heightened consent to read the content. Access to the catalogue is easier. That split matters when you draft, because a generic “my executor may access my digital accounts” clause may not be enough to unlock the messages your family actually needs.

How Florida Law Decides Who Gets Access

Florida adopted its version of the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, codified at sections 740.001 through 740.10, Florida Statutes. The Act creates a clear order of priority — what lawyers call the three-tier hierarchy — for deciding who controls a digital asset after death or incapacity.

Tier One: The Online Tool

If a platform offers an online tool that lets you name who can access or delete your account, and you use it, that instruction controls — even over your will. Google’s Inactive Account Manager and Facebook’s Legacy Contact are the best-known examples. Many clients are surprised to learn that a setting buried in their Google account can override an estate plan their attorney spent hours drafting. The lesson: review these tools and make sure they agree with your documents.

Tier Two: Your Estate Planning Documents

If you have not used an online tool, your will, trust, or power of attorney governs — but only if those documents grant the authority in clear language. This is where good drafting pays off. A Florida will that simply names an executor does not automatically authorize access to encrypted accounts or the content of communications. The grant has to be express.

Tier Three: The Terms of Service

If you leave no instructions in either an online tool or your documents, the platform’s terms-of-service agreement controls by default. That is the worst outcome. Most terms of service prohibit transfer, prohibit sharing credentials, and may quietly delete an account after a period of inactivity. Your heirs are left negotiating with a customer service queue.

The takeaway is simple. Silence does not default to your family. It defaults to a corporate user agreement most of us never read.

Why This Hits Florida Business Owners Hardest

For a solo professional or a closely held company, the business often lives online. Consider a Miami e-commerce operator whose entire revenue flows through a Shopify store, a Stripe account, and a single Gmail address that receives every password reset. If that owner dies without delegating access, the company can become unreachable within days. Subscriptions lapse, the domain expires, and the goodwill a family hoped to sell evaporates.

Succession planning for digital assets should run parallel to your traditional business succession work. If you hold your company in an LLC and your operating agreement addresses transfer on death, make sure the digital keys to that business pass just as deliberately. Cryptocurrency deserves special attention: a private key or seed phrase exists nowhere but where you put it. No court order can recover it. I have seen six-figure wallets become unrecoverable because no one knew the phrase existed, let alone where to find it.

This is also where coordinating a Florida plan with assets or counsel in other states matters. Many of our clients keep ties to the Northeast, and the same principles drive sophisticated planning at firms like Morgan Legal’s office handling in New York. Whether your trustee sits in Manhattan or Miami, the digital-asset authority has to be written into the instrument itself.

Building Digital Assets Into Your Plan: A Practical Sequence

You do not need to be a technologist to do this well. You need a method. Here is the sequence I use with clients.

1. Inventory everything. Build a written list of accounts by category — financial, business, personal, intellectual property. Note the asset, the platform, and whether it holds monetary value. Do not write passwords on this list.
2. Store credentials securely and separately. Use a reputable password manager, and make sure your fiduciary can reach the master credential when the time comes. A sealed letter in your safe deposit box or with your attorney can hold the recovery key.
3. Use the online tools. Set Google’s Inactive Account Manager, Facebook’s Legacy Contact, and Apple’s Legacy Contact, and confirm they name the same people as your documents.
4. Grant authority in your documents. Add express digital-asset language to your will, trust, and especially your durable power of attorney — which governs while you are alive but incapacitated, a scenario your will never reaches.
5. Address the business separately. Tie operational logins, domains, and payment processors to your business succession documents, not just your personal will.
6. Revisit it. Accounts change, platforms change their tools, and you open new ones. Review the inventory every year or two, the same way you would review beneficiary designations.

The durable power of attorney point bears repeating. Incapacity, not death, is the more common trigger. If a stroke or accident leaves you unable to manage your affairs, your agent will need to pay vendors, keep the website live, and access the accounts that run your business — and Chapter 740 requires that the power of attorney specifically authorize digital-asset access. A boilerplate POA often will not do it.

Coordinating Digital Assets With Wills, Trusts, and Probate

Digital assets do not escape the probate system in Florida simply because they are intangible. If a digital asset has value and is titled in your individual name, it generally becomes part of your probate estate and passes through the process described in Florida’s probate procedures. Funding a revocable living trust — and explicitly assigning your digital business assets to it — can keep those assets out of probate and let a successor trustee step in without court delay.

This is one more reason the documents themselves have to be precise. A well-drafted last will and testament names a personal representative and grants digital authority; a well-drafted trust holds the assets and empowers the trustee to manage them. For families with elder-law concerns layered on top — Medicaid planning, guardianship avoidance, long-term-care arrangements — the digital piece should be coordinated with the broader plan, much like the integrated approach used in . And for clients whose assets and family are rooted here in Florida, working with counsel focused on keeps every document aligned with Chapter 740.

Common Mistakes I See

• Listing passwords in the will. A will becomes a public record once it is filed with the court. Never put credentials in it; reference where they are stored instead.
• Assuming the executor automatically has access. Without express authority and, for message content, heightened consent, the executor may be stuck.
• Sharing one login. Giving your spouse your password is convenient and legally fragile — terms of service often prohibit it, and it does nothing for incapacity if your spouse is also unavailable.
• Forgetting the recovery email. One compromised or inaccessible email account can cascade into losing dozens of others through password resets.
• Never updating. A plan written before you launched your business is a plan that ignores your most valuable digital asset.

None of this is exotic. It is the same discipline you already apply to insurance and beneficiary forms, extended to the part of your life that now lives on a server. Done once and reviewed periodically, it spares your family the cruelest kind of loss — watching value they know exists slip away because no one had the right to reach it.

If you own a business in Miami or anywhere in Florida, take an afternoon to inventory your accounts, then bring that list to an estate planning attorney who can translate it into enforceable authority. Our team is happy to help you build a plan that protects your digital and traditional assets together.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does my Florida executor automatically get access to my online accounts?

No. Under Florida’s Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (Chapter 740, Florida Statutes), your personal representative can only access digital accounts if you granted authority through an online tool, your will, trust, or power of attorney. Access to the actual content of emails and private messages requires heightened, express consent. Without that, your executor may be locked out.

What happens to my cryptocurrency if I die without a plan in Florida?

Cryptocurrency is controlled by a private key or seed phrase that exists only where you stored it. If no one knows the phrase or where to find it, the assets are typically unrecoverable — no court order can restore them. Florida business owners holding crypto should securely document the recovery information and grant fiduciary authority in their estate documents.

Should I list my passwords in my will?

No. A will filed with a Florida probate court becomes a public record, so passwords listed in it are exposed. Instead, store credentials in a reputable password manager or sealed letter and reference their location in your documents, granting your fiduciary the authority to access them.

Do digital assets go through probate in Florida?

They can. If a digital asset has value and is titled in your individual name, it generally becomes part of your probate estate. Assigning digital business assets to a properly funded revocable living trust can keep them out of probate and let a successor trustee manage them without court delay.

Why does my power of attorney matter for digital assets?

Incapacity, not death, is the more common trigger. If you become unable to manage your affairs, your agent will need to access accounts to run your business and pay vendors. Chapter 740 requires that the durable power of attorney specifically authorize digital-asset access, and a boilerplate POA often does not include that language.