Digital Assets and your Will

The use of digital assets and online access to assets has grown significantly in recent years – most of us have access to emails, photos stored online and maybe even social media accounts The value of digital assets can vary, and many people think that they hold sentimental value – it is therefore essential to ensure that you include your digital assets in your Will so that you can make certain they are passed on to your beneficiaries

What are digital assets?

Although there is no set definition of what is and is not a digital asset, they tend to range from tangible assets like phones and laptops to non-tangible assets like your PayPal accounts, cryptocurrency, photos stored online, emails, and social media accounts

Digital assets can be valuable in a monetary and/or sentimental sense

Do you need to include digital assets in your will?

If you want to ensure that your digital assets go to the person you would like, it is crucial to include them in your will. If they are not specifically given to a beneficiary, they will remain part of your residuary estate

Another reason to include digital assets in your will is to ensure that your Executors are aware of them Many people fail to include them in their will and they are then forgotten about If you have a digital asset that is valuable to you, you should draw it to your executors’ attention to ensure that they are able to access your account to retrieve information and/or close your accounts

For digital assets with monetary value, your executors will need to have access details to ensure they can verify the assets and establish the value for tax purposes, as your Executors will have to give details of all your assets (including digital assets) when providing this information to HMRC and the Probate Registry when applying for a Grant of Probate Keeping an up-to-date record of your online accounts with access details is recommended as there are often difficulties for executors when it comes to accessing digital assets

Tangible assets like laptops will be considered as part of one’s personal effects in your Estate however this does not mean that everything stored on your laptop is automatically included unless specifically given to a beneficiary Digital assets such as emails and photos might not be readily accessible to your Executors, therefore if you want these to pass to a specific beneficiary it is recommended to leave instructions as to how to gain access to them

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Social media accounts prove difficult to access following the account holder ’s death and the requirements vary between providers so it is recommended that you consider this as fulfilling the requirements can be time-consuming

If you want to leave any of your digital assets to a particular person, you should include instructions in your will (or in a letter with your will)

What happens if you do not include digital assets in your will?

Without a will your digital assets will pass to the person as per the rules of intestacy There is also a risk of your non-tangible digital assets being overlooked

At Clapham & Collinge we have a dedicated team of experts who are able to provide you with all the necessary information, support and legal advice relating to claims for provisions for family and dependents Our legal advice is bespoke, confidential, and designed around you, helping you reach the best outcome. If you would like to seek advice on Wills, Probate, Lasting Powers of Attorney or any other private client related matter, please contact our dedicated Client Relations team on 01603 693510, or email enquiries@clapham-collinge.co.uk.

This article is provided for general information purposes only and does not constitute legal advice or professional advice

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Henry Geaves, squash coach from North Walsham, becomes the 32nd player to take handicap title

Cromer Squash Club hold four internal tournaments during the course of a season and the last one of these, the annual handicap tournament, traditionally takes place in the spring of each year just before the winter season of matches draws to an end The first tournament was held in 1981 and since then, apart from two years early in the millennium and again in 2021 because of COVID, players of all abilities have taken to the courts each year in a bid to lift the prestigious trophy which was originally presented by The Gateway Building Society

The beauty of the handicap tournament is that players of all abilities, in theory at least, have an equal chance of lifting the trophy but this year it was two of the lower handicap players, both regular members of the club’s high flying Norfolk League team, Henry Geaves (-8) and Ben Herrieven (-5) who fought their way through to the final Geaves was bidding to win the tournament for the first time, but Herrieven is a seasoned campaigner having previously got his name on the honours board sixteen years ago when he was the 2007 champion as well as twice going on to win the club championship itself in 2012 and 2014

Under the handicapping system Herrieven went into each game with a two-point lead but in the first game this proved irrelevant as Geaves soon pulled the handicap back to lead 5-2 and 10-4 before closing out the game 15-7. The second game, however, followed a completely different pattern as Herrieven led 5-2 and 9-5 before a run of five successive rallies enabled him to take the game 15-7 and draw level at 1-1

With the match evenly balanced the large crowd on the balcony sensed that the third game could prove decisive as Herrieven roared into a 10-3 lead However, he had to work hard for those points and although he went further ahead at 13-7, he was pleased to be able to take a breather as he just did enough to win the game 15-11

The fourth game was very much one way traffic as Geaves took it 15-5 against a visibly tiring Herrieven and then in a remarkable fifth game Geaves came from 2-8 down to win thirteen successive points to win the game 15-8 and the match 3-2 to become the thirty second different player to win the tournament

In the semi-finals both players had been involved in five game “thrillers” the previous evening Herrieven had beaten another former champion, Henri Paul 3-2 while Geaves had to come back from 7-12 down in the fifth to beat the reigning champion