Who Gets to Keep Assets in Online Accounts?

Ever wonder where the money in your cash apps or PayPal account goes upon your death?

In Florida, when a person passes away intestate, all known assets are accounted for by the Personal Representative of the estate. So how would a person administering an estate ever know about your PayPal account that stored $15,000 from all your eBay auctions? Most of the time, no one would know such account even exists.

If you have cash stored in online accounts, or even points accumulated in different websites that can be exchanged for rewards, make sure you make of list of these accounts in an inventory. By creating an inventory of all online accounts in your estate planning documents, you will make your personal representative’s job a lot easier when he or she has to account for all of your assets, especially if you do not have a will or trust that include these assets. You will also ensure that these assets are not lost simply because they are not known.

Be sure to include usernames and passwords for your online accounts when documenting your digital assets to make these accounts easily accessible. Our probate attorney can help you modify your existing estate planning documents or create comprehensive estate planning documents to include your digital assets.