Including Digital Assets in Your New York Estate Plan

To include digital assets in your New York estate plan, you inventory everything you own online, grant clear legal authority to a fiduciary you trust, and weave that authority through the four documents that make a New York plan complete: your will (EPTL §3-2.1), one or more trusts (EPTL Article 7), a durable power of attorney (GOL §5-1513), and a health care proxy (Public Health Law Article 29-C). For an individual planning on your own — without a spouse to automatically inherit or a co-owner on your accounts — this coordination matters even more. If you do nothing, your cryptocurrency, email, photos, domains, and online business income can be frozen, lost, or surrendered to a platform’s terms of service forever. This guide walks you through how a single New Yorker builds a plan that reaches every corner of your digital life.

What Counts as a Digital Asset

A “digital asset” is anything you own, control, or have value in that lives on a computer, phone, or network. For estate-planning purposes, these fall into a few practical buckets:

• Financial digital assets: cryptocurrency and NFTs, online brokerage and banking logins, PayPal/Venmo balances, and reward points with cash value.
• Income-producing accounts: online stores, monetized social channels, blogs with ad revenue, domain portfolios, and licensed digital works.
• Sentimental and personal files: photo libraries, email archives, cloud documents, and message histories.
• Access and identity assets: password managers, two-factor devices, and the recovery keys that unlock everything else.

For a single person, the access-and-identity category is the silent emergency. If you alone hold the seed phrase to a crypto wallet or the master password to your vault, and you have not documented a path for a fiduciary to reach it, that value may be permanently unrecoverable — no court order can reconstruct a lost private key.

Why an Individual Needs This More Than a Married Couple

Married New Yorkers often have overlapping access: a joint bank account, a shared family photo cloud, a spouse who knows the Wi-Fi and the Apple ID. As a single person, you are frequently the only human who knows your accounts exist. If you become incapacitated or pass away without a plan:

• No one may even know an asset exists (an untracked crypto wallet vanishes silently).
• Platform terms of service may prohibit transfer and simply delete the account.
• Your chosen friend or sibling has no legal authority to ask a provider for access.
• Intestacy under EPTL Article 4 sends assets to your closest relatives by formula — possibly people you would never have chosen to handle your private digital life.

Planning replaces that chaos with a named, authorized fiduciary and clear instructions.

How Each New York Document Carries Digital Authority

A complete plan is not one document — it is four, coordinated together. Each handles a different moment in your life.

Document	NY Authority	What It Controls for Digital Assets
Will	EPTL §3-2.1	Distributes digital property you own at death; names an executor and can grant explicit digital-access powers
Trust	EPTL Article 7	Holds and manages digital assets during life and after death, avoiding probate and providing privacy
Durable Power of Attorney	GOL §5-1513	Lets your agent manage accounts while you are alive but incapacitated
Health Care Proxy	PHL Article 29-C	Appoints an agent for medical decisions (separate from financial authority)

Your Will

Under EPTL §3-2.1, a valid New York will requires two attesting witnesses, your signature at the end of the document, and publication (declaring it to be your will). Your will names the executor who gathers and distributes assets after death — and it should expressly grant that executor authority to access, manage, and distribute your digital property and electronic communications. Without explicit language, providers and courts may resist disclosure.

A Revocable Living Trust

A revocable living trust under EPTL Article 7 lets you retitle digital assets into the trust during your lifetime. The payoff for a single person is significant: a properly funded trust avoids probate, so your crypto and online accounts pass privately and quickly to your beneficiaries without a public court file listing what you owned. Note the limit — a revocable trust offers no estate-tax savings; for tax reduction, asset protection, or Medicaid (with its 5-year look-back), an irrevocable trust is the tool, and a Supplemental Needs Trust under EPTL 7-1.12 preserves benefits for a disabled beneficiary.

Durable Power of Attorney

The biggest digital risk is not death — it is incapacity while you are still alive, when accounts keep running but you cannot manage them. New York’s power of attorney under GOL §5-1513 is durable by default and uses the 2021 statutory short form. Your agent can pay your online bills, manage your accounts, and keep an online business breathing while you recover. For a single person with no spouse to step in automatically, this document is the difference between continuity and frozen accounts.

Health Care Proxy

A health care proxy under Public Health Law Article 29-C appoints an agent to make medical decisions if you cannot speak for yourself. It is distinct from the financial POA — and naming the same trusted person on both, with shared instructions, keeps your digital and medical wishes aligned during a crisis.

A Practical Digital-Asset Checklist for Individuals

1. Build a complete inventory. List every account, wallet, and device — but never put live passwords or seed phrases inside your will, which becomes a public record in probate.
2. Store credentials securely and separately. Use a password manager with a documented emergency-access path, or a sealed instruction held by your attorney.
3. Add explicit digital authority to your will, trust, and POA — naming digital assets directly.
4. Use platform legacy tools (Google Inactive Account Manager, Apple Legacy Contact, Facebook Legacy Contact) as a supplement, not a substitute, for your legal documents.
5. Fund your trust by actually retitling assets that belong in it.
6. Review after every major change — a new wallet, a new business, a move.

A Quick Word on New York Estate Tax

Digital wealth counts toward your taxable estate. For 2026, New York’s basic exclusion is $7,350,000 (for deaths on or after 1/1/2026 through 12/31/2026). Watch the cliff: an estate exceeding 105% of the exclusion — $7,717,500 — loses the entire exemption and is taxed from the first dollar, at progressive rates of 3% to 16%. New York has no gift tax, but gifts made within three years of death are added back to the taxable estate. If your crypto holdings have appreciated sharply, see our NY estate tax guide and plan early.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I list my cryptocurrency passwords in my New York will?
No — your will can become a public record through probate, so never include live passwords or seed phrases. Reference where the credentials are stored and grant your executor authority to retrieve them.

What happens to my online accounts if I die without a will in New York?
Your assets pass under intestacy rules (EPTL Article 4) to your closest relatives by statutory formula, and accounts without documented access may be frozen or deleted under provider terms of service.

Does a revocable living trust save New York estate tax on my digital assets?
No. A revocable trust under EPTL Article 7 avoids probate and provides privacy, but offers no estate-tax savings. Tax reduction calls for an irrevocable trust.

Who can access my accounts if I’m incapacitated but still alive?
Your agent under a durable power of attorney (GOL §5-1513) can manage your financial and online accounts; your health care agent under PHL Article 29-C handles medical decisions.

Talk to a New York Estate Planning Attorney

Your digital life deserves the same protection as your home and your bank accounts — and as a single person, you are the one who must put that protection in place. Russel Morgan, Esq., and the team at Morgan Legal Group help individuals across New York State coordinate a will, trust, durable power of attorney, and health care proxy that reach every account, wallet, and file you own.

Start with our estate planning overview, review the documents on our wills and power of attorney pages, then schedule a 30-minute consultation with Russel Morgan to build a plan that secures your digital legacy.