What Happens to Your Digital Life? Putting Online Accounts in Your Will

When most people think about their estate, they picture the house, the savings, and the family heirlooms. But for families across Oldham, Rochdale and Tameside, a growing part of what we leave behind lives online — bank accounts, pension portals, email, photos in the cloud, and social media profiles. Yet very few Wills mention any of it. Here's a plain-English guide to including your digital life in your Will.

What counts as a digital asset?

• Financial accounts you access online — banking, savings, investments, and pension portals.
• Email and cloud storage — Gmail, Outlook, iCloud, Google Drive, Dropbox, where photos and documents are kept.
• Social media — Facebook, Instagram, X (Twitter), and LinkedIn profiles.
• Subscriptions and online services — streaming accounts, online shopping accounts, and domain names.
• Cryptocurrency and digital wallets — if you hold any, these can be lost forever without instructions.

Why digital assets get lost

The problem isn't usually that families can't inherit digital assets — it's that they can't find them. Without passwords, account lists, or permission, loved ones can spend months trying to prove who they are to big tech companies. Some accounts simply close or vanish. A few lines in your Will, plus a separate list of accounts, prevents all of that.

"Your Will doesn't need to list every password — it just needs to give your executors permission and point them to where the list is kept."

How to include digital assets in your Will

• Name an executor (or a separate 'digital executor') you trust to handle your online accounts.
• Give them legal permission to access your digital assets — this is the part that goes in the Will itself.
• Keep a separate, secure list of your accounts, usernames, and where passwords are stored (a password manager is ideal). Don't put passwords in the Will.
• State what you want to happen to social media — memorialised, closed, or left to a specific person.

Don't put passwords in your Will

A Will becomes a public document after probate, so never write passwords, PINs, or secret answers inside it. Keep the account list separately and securely, and tell your executors where to find it. We'll talk you through the safest approach at your kitchen table.

We make it simple

When we write your Will, we'll ask about your digital life as a matter of course — not just the house and the savings. It's all part of making sure nothing you've built, online or off, gets lost. Book a free home visit and we'll talk it through in plain English.