Over the last two years the Uniform Law Commission’s Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets committee has worked with companies, private organizations and industry leaders to craft a model act to incorporate digital assets into probate and trust codes. The stated goal of the committee is to “vest fiduciaries with at least the authority to manage and distribute digital assets, copy or delete digital assets, and access digital assets.”
March 21st marks the last formal meeting of the committee, as the drafting process is coming to a close and the act is likely scheduled for approval by the ULC in the summer.
I won’t enter into the specifics of the draft here, but I would encourage you to read the current draft and correspondence available at the ULC website.
It’s a good initiative and is definitely needed. However, IMO we need more comprehensive solution for this. I wouldn’t want all my digital assets to go to my legal hire – I would want to distribute it to right people. Also, without instructions on what needs to be done to these digital assets – people who receive it wouldn’t have any clue on what can they do with it.
We created PlannedDeparture.com to solve this problem. It’s a perfect solution to complement traditional will in this digital age. Have a look at this one minute video to see how this problem can be solved in a better way.