The ‘New’ New Property: Dealing with Digital Assets on Death

What happens to digital assets when someone dies? This basic question raises a host of legal issues around ownership, privacy, access to usernames and passwords, and the duties of personal representatives when administering estates, which do not fit neatly within traditional succession law and property law concepts. The location of digital assets also leads to complex multi-jurisdictional legal issues, yet there is currently no ‘joined-up’ international law on the subject. This paper looks briefly at digital assets and how they are defined, before examining the challenges posed from an estate planning perspective.