The Property (Digital Assets etc) Bill has just been introduced to the House of Lords. The Bill’s purpose is to clarify the legal status of digital assets as personal property.
Posts tagged “Digital assets”
Cryptocurrency is digital money. It’s protected by technology called blockchain which safely stores information about your transactions.
Many people are interested in cryptocurrency because banks and governments don’t control it.
You can use cryptocurrency to buy some things online but it’s also a new way to invest and save for the future. Some think the value of cryptocurrencies will go up as more people use them.
There are almost 9,000 active cryptocurrencies. You’ve probably heard of ones like Bitcoin and Ethereum. They are popular because governments and banks don’t control them.
However, holding and managing cryptocurrency investments isn’t straightforward.
Moving to online banking and turning off paper statements is convenient and popular. However, it’s easy to forget that this means there’s very little to tell your loved ones where your assets are when you die.
If they don’t have access to your digital devices and account details they might never find what you have left behind.
We are all being urged to plan what will happen to our ‘digital memories’ by the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP). These might include irreplaceable photos, videos, social media profiles and email accounts. If you don’t make arrangements before your death these could all be lost.
The Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP) is supporting a campaign to give bereaved families access to their loved ones’ digital assets.
It’s a new question for our technological age – what happens to your digital assets when you die?
People often underestimate what’s in their estate when they start to think about their Will. It’s easy to forget about things that are stored in the cloud or on a laptop or smartphone, social media accounts, online bank accounts and cryptocurrencies.
Social media and email accounts, cryptocurrencies, and photographs stored in the cloud are all digital assets.
Although they are an important part of our lives, we probably haven’t given much thought to what will happen to them if we die or are unable to make decisions about them.
Joint research by the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP) and the Microsoft-funded Cloud Legal Project at Queen Mary University of London has looked at the practical issues surrounding digital assets for estate planning.