Your Estate Matters

Control your "digital assets!" The widow of one of my clients recently told me that her husband had left a significant stamp collection, which he had meticulously cataloged according to rarity and estimated value. However, that information, needed to facilitate appraisal of the stamps and establish their tax basis for the family, was "safeguarded" on his personal computer, and he had died without leaving his wife his computer password! She was unable to access his computer information or his other password-protected websites and was forced to hire an expensive computer "hacker" to obtain the needed information.  The "hacker," however, adhering to law and ethics, insisted on verification that my client was legally entitled to access that information; he viewed the computer and its contents as an asset of the husband's estate. Although we were able to provide this without the need to probate the computer (!), it still indicates the need we all have to secure this information while we're alive and to make it easily available if we die. (One place to log our passwords is Section 8  (Miscellaneous Information) of the EstatePlanner Portfolio.)