Digital assets in a Florida estate plan are the online accounts, files, cryptocurrency, loyalty points, and electronic records a person owns or controls at death or incapacity. Florida grants a personal representative, trustee, or agent under a power of attorney the legal authority to manage them under the Florida Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (Chapter 740, Florida Statutes). Without the right language in your parent’s will, trust, or power of attorney, those fiduciaries may be locked out of accounts they have every right to handle.
If you are an adult child helping an aging parent get their affairs in order in Miami, this is one of the most overlooked pieces of the plan. Most families think about the house, the bank accounts, and the car. Almost no one thinks about the email account that holds the password reset links to everything else. This guide walks through what counts as a digital asset, what Florida law actually allows, and the concrete steps to take before a crisis hits.
What Counts as a Digital Asset
The category is broader than people expect. Florida’s statute defines a digital asset as an electronic record in which an individual has a right or interest. In plain terms, that covers nearly everything your parent touches through a screen.
- Email and cloud storage — Gmail, Outlook, iCloud, Dropbox, Google Drive. These are the master keys; they receive the password resets for everything else.
- Financial accounts with no paper trail — online-only banks, brokerage apps, PayPal, Venmo, Zelle balances.
- Cryptocurrency and digital wallets — Bitcoin, Ethereum, and tokens held on exchanges like Coinbase or in self-custody wallets. If the private key or seed phrase dies with your parent, the asset is gone forever. No court can recover it.
- Social media and photos — Facebook, Instagram, a lifetime of family photographs stored in the cloud.
- Subscriptions and loyalty programs — airline miles, hotel points, Amazon, streaming services that keep billing a deceased person’s card.
- Business and domain assets — websites, domain names, online stores, and any income they generate.
Some of these have real monetary value. Others have only sentimental value, but for a grieving family, recovering a parent’s last decade of photographs can matter more than any bank balance.
The Difference Between the Asset and the Account
This distinction trips up families constantly. Your parent owns the money in a PayPal account, but PayPal owns the platform. The terms-of-service agreement they clicked years ago governs what happens to the account, and many providers prohibit transferring or even sharing login credentials. That tension — private contract terms versus your parent’s wishes — is exactly what Florida law steps in to resolve.
How Florida Law Handles Digital Assets: RUFADAA and Chapter 740
Florida adopted the Florida Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, the state’s version of the model law known as RUFADAA, in 2016. It lives in Chapter 740 of the Florida Statutes. The Act creates a clear order of priority that determines who controls a digital asset and how.
- Online tools first. If a provider offers an “online tool” — like Google’s Inactive Account Manager or Facebook’s Legacy Contact — and your parent uses it to name someone, that choice overrides everything else, including a contradictory will.
- The estate plan second. If there is no online tool, the directions in your parent’s will, trust, or power of attorney control. This is the layer most families can actually plan for.
- The terms-of-service agreement last. If neither of the above applies, the provider’s own contract decides — and that usually means the account is frozen or deleted with no family access at all.
The takeaway is simple: silence loses. If your parent does nothing, the default is the provider’s terms of service, which almost never favor the family. Affirmative planning is what unlocks access.
Why a Power of Attorney Matters as Much as a Will
Estate planning is not only about death. A parent who develops dementia or suffers a stroke may live for years while needing someone to manage their digital life — paying bills online, accessing medical portals, handling automatic subscriptions. A durable power of attorney under Florida law can grant an agent authority over digital assets during incapacity, but only if it specifically says so. A boilerplate power of attorney drafted before 2016 likely contains no digital-asset language at all. This is one reason older documents need a fresh look, and it is a core part of the elder-law planning we discuss with families. For families with ties to New York as well, Morgan Legal’s handles the same incapacity-planning issues under New York’s parallel statute.
Steps to Take With Your Aging Parent in Miami
Here is the practical sequence I recommend to adult children sitting down with a parent for the first time. It moves from the easiest, free steps to the formal legal ones.
1. Build a Secure Inventory
You cannot manage what you cannot find. Help your parent list their accounts — the platform, the username, and crucially, where the password is stored. Do not write passwords into the will itself; a will becomes a public court record once it is filed for probate. Instead, use a reputable password manager that allows for an emergency or legacy contact, and reference its location in the plan.
2. Set Up the Online Tools
Walk your parent through the provider tools while they are healthy:
- Google’s Inactive Account Manager — designates who receives access after a period of inactivity.
- Apple’s Legacy Contact — lets a named person request access to the Apple ID after death with a court document.
- Facebook Legacy Contact — allows memorializing or managing the profile.
Because RUFADAA gives these tools top priority, ten minutes of setup can save your family months of frustration later.
3. Update the Will, Trust, and Power of Attorney
The estate-planning documents need explicit digital-asset clauses that grant the personal representative, trustee, and agent authority to access, control, and dispose of electronic records, including the content of electronic communications where your parent consents. A revocable living trust is often the cleanest vehicle, because assets held in trust avoid the delays of probate entirely — an advantage that applies to digital property just as it does to real estate and investment accounts. You can read more about how these structures work in our overview of .
4. Handle Cryptocurrency With Extra Care
Crypto deserves its own paragraph because the stakes are absolute. If your parent holds digital currency in a self-custody wallet, the seed phrase is the asset. Lose it and there is no recovery, no customer-service line, no court order that helps. The plan must include a secure, separate method for a trusted fiduciary to locate that seed phrase — never in plain text in the will, but documented somewhere the right person can reach it at the right time.
Common Mistakes Florida Families Make
- Sharing a password and calling it a plan. Logging into a deceased parent’s account with their password can violate the provider’s terms of service and, in some readings, federal computer-access law. Florida’s statute exists precisely so fiduciaries do not have to operate in that gray zone.
- Relying on an outdated power of attorney. Documents signed before 2016 rarely mention digital assets. An agent may find the document useless when they try to access an account.
- Writing credentials into the will. A probated will is public. Anything written in it — account numbers, hints, security answers — becomes available to anyone who pulls the file from the courthouse.
- Forgetting the email account. Email is the hub. Plan for it first, because controlling the inbox is often the practical path to controlling everything else.
When These Assets Reach Probate
If your parent passes away without the right planning, the personal representative may have to petition the probate court for authority and then submit formal requests — often with a certified death certificate and Letters of Administration — to each provider one at a time. The process is slow, and providers vary wildly in how they respond. Some honor the request in weeks; others stonewall for months or insist on a specific court order. Understanding how Florida probate intersects with digital property helps families set realistic expectations, and a well-drafted will can shorten the road considerably. Our Florida team handles these matters directly through our .
Talk to a Miami Estate Planning Attorney
Digital assets are no longer a niche concern. Your parent’s financial life, their memories, and sometimes their identity live online, and Florida law gives you real tools to protect all of it — but only if you act before incapacity or death takes the decision out of your hands. If you are helping a parent plan, or you have just lost one and are facing locked accounts, an experienced Florida attorney can map out the cleanest path forward. Reach out through our contact page to start the conversation.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I access my deceased parent's email account in Florida?
Possibly, but not automatically. Under the Florida Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (Chapter 740), a personal representative can request access to the content of electronic communications only if your parent consented through an online tool, a will, a trust, or a power of attorney. If they did none of these, the provider’s terms of service control, and access is often denied. Planning ahead is the only reliable way to guarantee access.
Does a Florida will cover digital assets?
A will can cover digital assets, but only if it contains specific language granting the personal representative authority over electronic records. A generic will written without digital-asset clauses may leave your fiduciary without clear authority. Also, never write passwords into the will itself, because a probated will becomes a public court record.
What happens to cryptocurrency if my parent dies without sharing the seed phrase?
It is almost certainly lost permanently. Self-custody cryptocurrency is controlled entirely by the private key or seed phrase. No court order, exchange, or attorney can recover funds if that information dies with the owner. The estate plan must include a secure, documented way for a trusted fiduciary to locate the seed phrase without exposing it publicly.
Should digital asset authority go in a power of attorney too?
Yes. A durable power of attorney lets an agent manage digital accounts while your parent is alive but incapacitated, such as after a stroke or with dementia. The document must specifically authorize digital-asset access, since many older Florida powers of attorney drafted before 2016 contain no such language and may be useless when needed.
What is an online tool and why does it matter?
An online tool is a provider feature like Google’s Inactive Account Manager, Apple’s Legacy Contact, or Facebook’s Legacy Contact that lets a user name who controls the account later. Under Florida law, a choice made through an online tool has the highest priority and overrides even a contradictory will, so setting these up is one of the most effective planning steps available.
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