The Property (Digital Assets etc) Act 2025 settled one narrow point: a thing digital or electronic in nature is not excluded from being the object of personal property rights merely because it is neither a thing in possession nor a thing in action. That clarification applies to England, Wales and Northern Ireland, but the 2025 Act does not extend to Scotland.
Anyone drafting a will that touches Scottish assets needs separate advice grounded in Scots common law, where the classification of novel intangible property remains less codified.
See also: Divorce law reform in the UK: What you need to know
Platform-specific legacy tools and why a will alone falls short
Naming a digital executor in a will gives that person legal standing, but it does not hand them a password. Each major platform gates access through its own mechanism, and the scope of what a nominated contact can actually retrieve varies sharply.
Apple’s Legacy Contact programme requires the account holder to generate an access key during their lifetime and share it with a trusted person. On death, the contact submits that key alongside a death certificate. Apple then grants access to most iCloud data, but iCloud Keychain passwords and passkeys are explicitly excluded. If the access key was never created or has been lost, the legal route is slow and uncertain.
You may also like: UK construction law: Insights into dispute resolution
Google’s Inactive Account Manager works on a different trigger: a period of account inactivity chosen by the user. Once that threshold passes, Google can share selected data categories with nominated contacts. The user decides in advance which services (Gmail, Drive, Photos, YouTube) each contact may access. This is not a post-death claim process; it fires automatically.
Facebook allows a legacy contact to manage a memorialised profile, but that contact cannot read private messages or log in as the deceased user. A court order or specific legal authority may be needed to obtain message content.
A generic clause in a will stating “I leave my digital accounts to my spouse” achieves almost nothing at the platform level. Executors need to know which tools have been activated, where access keys are stored, and which platforms require a death certificate, a court order, or both.
Storing credentials securely without embedding them in the will
Wills become public documents once probate is granted. Listing passwords, seed phrases or private keys inside the will itself is a serious security risk. The standard approach is a separate secure document cross-referenced in the will, stored in a location the executor can reach, such as a safety deposit box, a fireproof home safe, or an encrypted password manager whose master credentials are shared through a distinct channel.
The will should state where to find these credentials and who holds any secondary authentication (a hardware security key, a recovery phrase, a biometric prompt). For cryptocurrency wallets, the critical item is the seed phrase or private key. Losing it means losing the asset permanently; there is no platform support desk to reset access.
- Hardware wallets (Ledger, Trezor) require a PIN and a recovery seed phrase, both of which should be recorded on paper or metal and stored separately from the device itself.
- Exchange-held crypto (Coinbase, Kraken, Binance) may be recoverable through the exchange’s probate process, but this depends on the exchange’s terms and the executor producing a grant of probate and death certificate.
- Self-custody wallets with no seed phrase backup are functionally irrecoverable on the holder’s death.
Inheritance tax treatment of digital property in UK estates
HMRC treats digital assets with monetary value as part of the deceased’s estate for inheritance tax purposes. Cryptocurrency, domain names with resale value, royalty-generating digital content and paid online accounts all fall within the taxable estate. The executor must value these assets at the date of death and report them on the IHT400 return.
Valuation can be contentious. Crypto markets move by the hour, and HMRC expects a reasonable spot price at the date of death. For assets held on overseas exchanges, double taxation treaties may apply depending on where the exchange is domiciled.
Non-fungible tokens and digital art raise additional questions. The 2025 Act confirms these can be personal property, but their market value is often illiquid and subjective. Executors may need an independent valuation, and disagreements with HMRC are not uncommon in estates with significant NFT holdings.
Practical steps for a digital asset inventory
An estate plan that covers digital assets needs a maintained inventory. This is not a one-off task; accounts are opened, closed, and migrated regularly.
- List every account with financial value: bank accounts accessed solely online, investment platforms, crypto exchanges, PayPal or similar payment services, domain registrars, and any platform generating royalty or advertising income.
- List accounts with sentimental value: photo storage (Google Photos, iCloud), email accounts, social media profiles, and messaging apps containing irreplaceable correspondence.
- Record for each account: the platform name, the registered email address, whether two-factor authentication is active, and whether a legacy or inactive-account tool has been configured.
- Note the jurisdiction: a UK-based executor dealing with a US-incorporated platform faces different data-access rules than when dealing with a UK or EU service, particularly under the UK GDPR framework.
We recommend reviewing this inventory at least once a year or whenever a significant new account is opened.
UK GDPR and the limits on executor access to personal data
Data protection law does not disappear on death, though its application narrows. The UK GDPR protects the personal data of living individuals; once someone dies, their data is no longer directly protected by GDPR. Platforms, though, are not obliged to hand over data simply because the individual has died. Their own terms of service, privacy policies and internal processes govern what they release and to whom.
The Information Commissioner’s Office has noted that organisations should handle deceased users’ data responsibly, but there is no statutory right for executors to demand bulk data exports from every platform. Where a platform refuses access, the executor’s recourse may ultimately require a court application, though the precise legal basis will depend on the jurisdiction and circumstances of the estate.
This gap between legal authority and practical access is the single biggest friction point in digital estate administration. A well-drafted will, a maintained credential store, and pre-configured platform legacy tools together close most of it. Any one of those elements missing leaves the executor navigating a patchwork of platform policies with no guarantee of a satisfactory outcome.
