Digital Assets and Your New Hampshire Estate Plan: What Happens to Your Accounts After You’re Gone

On Behalf of Sowerby & Moustakis Law

Quick Summary

Digital assets can include email, cloud photo libraries, online financial records, social media accounts, loyalty points, domain names, and other accounts that matter to your family after your death or incapacity. In New Hampshire, estate planning for digital assets should address both your legal documents and the online tools or account settings offered by the custodian. This article explains what New Hampshire families should organize now so a fiduciary is not left guessing later.

When people say they want to get their affairs in order, they are usually thinking about the house, the bank accounts, and the will.

But more and more of life is now behind a login.

That creates a modern estate planning problem. Your family may know you had important online accounts, but that does not mean they can legally or practically access them when they need them.

What Counts As A Digital Asset?

The phrase “digital assets” can sound technical, but the real-life categories are easy to recognize.

For many New Hampshire families, digital assets include:

• Email accounts
• Cloud storage and photo libraries
• Social media profiles
• Online banking and bill-pay access
• Cryptocurrency or other digital-wallet information
• Airline miles, hotel points, and reward balances
• Online business accounts
• Domain names and websites
• Subscription accounts
• Password-manager access
• Digitally stored legal, tax, and financial records

Some of these items have financial value. Others have practical or emotional value. Family photos, tax records, business logins, and messages tied to estate administration can matter just as much as a dollar balance.

For general estate planning background, see the Sowerby & Moustakis Law page on estate planning.

Why A Will Alone May Not Solve The Problem

One of the biggest misconceptions in this area is that naming an executor automatically gives that person full access to everything online.

Sometimes it helps. Sometimes it is not enough.

A digital account may also be controlled by:

• The provider’s own legacy or emergency-access tool
• The provider’s terms of service
• Privacy law
• The type of data involved
• The exact authority granted in your will, trust, or power of attorney

That means the legal answer and the practical answer are not always the same.

Your executor may have authority to administer your estate, but still run into delays if no one knows where the accounts are, if the provider requires a specific request process, or if your documents say less than the provider needs to see.

What New Hampshire Law Says About Digital Assets

New Hampshire adopted the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act in RSA 554-A. The statute is a useful planning tool, but it is not a blank check for a family member to start logging in as you.

Under RSA 554-A:4, a user may use an online tool offered by the custodian to direct disclosure or nondisclosure of digital assets. If that online tool allows the user to change the direction at any time, the online-tool direction overrides a contrary direction in a will, trust, power of attorney, or other record.

That point surprises many families. If a provider gives you a built-in legacy setting or designated-recipient tool and you use it, that setting may control over older estate-planning language.

If the user has not used such an online tool, RSA 554-A:4 also allows direction to be given in a will, trust, power of attorney, or other record.

The law also matters because RSA 554-A:15 makes clear that a fiduciary’s authority is still limited by the fiduciary’s duties, applicable law, and the terms of service. It also says that authority may not be used to impersonate the user.

In plain English, the goal is not to help your family sneak into your accounts. The goal is to put the right authority in place so the right person can request lawful access when needed.

Online Tools Matter More Than Many People Realize

This is where digital-asset planning becomes very practical.

Some providers let you:

• Name a legacy contact
• Choose what happens after inactivity
• Authorize limited data sharing
• Request account deletion after death
• Control whether the contents of communications can be disclosed

Because those settings may override a contrary instruction in an older document, families should not treat digital planning as something that lives only inside the will binder.

Your estate plan and your online settings should point in the same direction.

What A New Hampshire Digital-Asset Plan Should Include

A good plan is usually less about one magic document and more about coordination.

At minimum, many families should review:

1. An Inventory Of Accounts

Your fiduciary cannot manage what they cannot find.

That does not mean leaving passwords on a sticky note. It means creating an organized inventory of the accounts that matter, where they are held, and why they matter.

2. A Safe Access System

If you use a password manager, device-based emergency contact, or other secure system, your family should know that system exists and how access will be handled after death or incapacity.

3. Updated Estate Planning Documents

Your will, trust, and power of attorney should be reviewed together so the right person has the right authority for the right stage of your life and administration.

If incapacity planning is part of the concern, you may also want to review the firm’s article on guardianship versus power of attorney in New Hampshire.

4. Provider-Specific Legacy Settings

If the custodian offers an online legacy or inactive-account tool, that setting should be reviewed and matched to the rest of the plan.

5. A Practical Family Road Map

Many families benefit from a plain-English memo or binder that explains what exists, what is important, and where the fiduciary should start.

That kind of organization fits Peter Moustakis’s practical planning style well. It can spare a family from having to reconstruct a digital life during grief or incapacity.

Which Accounts Usually Matter Most After A Death?

Families do not need to solve every streaming subscription first.

The accounts that tend to matter most are the ones tied to administration, money, records, and identity:

• Primary email accounts
• Phone access and authentication methods
• Online bank and credit-card records
• Tax-document storage
• Cloud document folders
• Business logins
• Domain and website controls
• Photo libraries and family archives

For some people, there may also be digital assets with direct financial value, including online storefront revenue, monetized creator accounts, or cryptocurrency wallets.

The Common Mistake: Waiting Until Someone Is Already Gone

Digital-asset planning tends to be delayed because it feels less urgent than a will or trust.

But this is exactly the kind of issue families discover too late. A loved one dies, a fiduciary tries to access an email account, two-factor authentication is tied to a deactivated phone, nobody knows whether an inactive-account manager was set, and important records become hard to reach.

The family may eventually work through it, but under stress and with more cost.

For related probate background, see the Sowerby & Moustakis Law page on probate and trust administration.

A Better Question Than “Do We Have The Password?”

The better question is this:

If your family needed to handle your affairs this month, would they know what exists, who has authority, and how to proceed without guessing?

If the answer is no, your digital assets belong in your estate-planning review.

Digital life is now real life. Your estate plan should reflect that.

If you want to review your will, trust, power of attorney, and digital-asset instructions together, call Sowerby & Moustakis Law at (603) 249-5925, email info@smlpllc.com, or visit our contact page.