You can’t see most of what you own. Passwords, old email logins, smartphone photos, social accounts, crypto wallets, domain names, all quietly stacked on some distant server. Missouri families run on these bits and codes. When someone dies, the digital pile often goes untouched—locked, invisible, sometimes gone for good. Every week, another family will ask: What now? Without an estate plan, there’s no clear answer. Just loss, waiting to be counted.
Understanding Digital Assets: The New Personal Effects
Digital assets aren’t just a modern twist on old paperwork. They’re everything with a login. That means Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo inboxes. Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn. Cloud drives like Google Drive and Dropbox. Financial sites, investment apps, crypto keys. Online storefronts, hobby sites, music, eBooks, streaming accounts—Netflix, Spotify, Prime. These replace safety deposit boxes and filing cabinets. There’s no key under the tray. It’s all passwords and contracts most people never read.
This is where things break down. If your estate plan skips these digital odds and ends, the people you love are left staring at screens, guessing at passwords, sometimes not even sure what accounts exist. A house can be unlocked and sorted. A locked Dropbox full of photos? That’s a different kind of door.
Dead Accounts: What Happens When There’s No Plan?
Leave these digital doors closed, and your family may never get them open. Missouri law tries to define a way through, but most paths dead-end at the provider’s terms. Companies and federal rules draw hard lines on access when no plan was made. Forgotten crypto wallets, unread messages, money left in digital bank accounts—the state swallows some of it. The rest, nobody touches.
Missouri Law: The Rules at Work
2018—the state passes the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, or RUFADAA. The idea is simple. Give executors, trusted agents, and power of attorney holders the chance to handle a person’s digital property. But there’s a catch. RUFADAA only works if two things fall into place:
- You used the site’s “online tool”—think Google’s Inactive Account Manager, Facebook’s legacy contact. These let you say what happens when you’re gone.
- Your estate documents—the will, trust, or power of attorney—spell out digital access in clear English and give a named person that authority.
If you missed both, Missouri defers to the tech company. Their rules, their call. Most bar entry. Heirs get nowhere, even with a court order. Family photos? Lost. Old business contacts in Outlook? Gone. Even a small savings in a digital wallet can disappear to bureaucracy or time.
Where Families Get Burned
- Photos Trapped Forever: If images, letters, or family footage live behind a password and no one prepared, those memories can get erased, just policy at work. No appeals.
- Money Locked Away: Cryptocurrency, PayPal, or a digital-only bank balance might vanish. Unclaimed, sometimes confiscated by the state. Survivors often don’t even know an asset existed.
- Privacy Lives On: Without access to old social profiles or email, the dead can’t delete themselves. Hackers, scams, and unwanted reminders drift on.
- Business Goes Dark: If the owner ran a business through Shopify or a blog, the whole operation can stall in an instant. Missed payments, lost customers—hard to recover from that wreckage.
- Tech Company Wall: Most digital giants refuse to share or transfer accounts. No matter the plea. Sometimes even after a court win. Sometimes it’s just “no”—forever.
No Wiggle Room: Major Companies’ Death Policies
It doesn’t matter how many paper documents you bring—online giants make their own rules. If you didn’t use the built-in tools, their shutdown procedures rule the day:
- Google: Set up their Inactive Account Manager and you can pass data along. Skip it, and everything’s locked down or wiped.
- Apple (iCloud, iTunes): No Legacy Contact? Your account can get erased, even if relatives have legal letters in hand. Apple is absolute here.
- Facebook: You can pick a legacy contact, but most don’t bother. Without it, accounts freeze or get memorialized. Few exceptions.
- Crypto and Wallets: No key, no asset. Courts can’t compel blockchain companies to restore access. Lost means lost.
- Email/Cloud Providers: Transfers mostly banned. Terms forbid access unless you gave permission upfront. Even death doesn’t move the needle in most cases.
Missouri courts can’t arm-wrestle global tech companies. If Google or Apple says no, there’s nowhere else to go. Probate letters mean zero to a server farm in California or Ireland.
The Limits for Families: What You Can and Can’t Pull Off
You might have a copy of the death certificate and official court papers, but that’s often meaningless. Most providers will just offer to scrub or “memorialize” an account—not hand over the content inside. Photos, bank records, messages—lost in the shuffle. These are the moves people try:
- Password Recovery: Useless unless you already have recovery info, and nearly impossible if two-factor authentication was tied to dead phones or locked email.
- Going to Probate Court: A judge can name a personal representative, but legal muscle only works if the company agrees. Federal computer laws block most of what can be forced.
- Manual Device Search: If you unlock a computer or phone, maybe you grab a few precious files. Rarely the full account. Usually not the financial stuff.
- Customer Support Hail Mary: Support agents almost always refuse to unlock. The policy’s global, not tailored to Missouri.
The worst result is the most common one: whole collections of memories, or real money, erased with no warning. Nothing left to do but walk away.
Missouri Business Owners: Extra Risk, Fewer Answers
For small shop owners—service businesses, Etsy stores, eBay sellers—the lack of an estate plan lands hardest. No password, no orders. Vendors wait, customers get angry. A web operation can go silent in hours, dragging goodwill and value down into the dirt. In Missouri, a business counts as an estate asset—but the online side? That lives or dies with basic access and the right paperwork. Nothing else will save it.
How to Hold Your Ground: Missouri Solutions that Work
There’s a fix, if you build it early. Missouri law lets you name exactly who should control your digital property. Spell it out in wills, trusts, or powers of attorney. Even better, use those built-in “online tools.” They’re the one shortcut that survives company policy every time.
- Take Inventory: List accounts, note which email or app unlocks them. Never put passwords in the legal file, but let your agent know where to find them—maybe a locked password manager, maybe with a lawyer you trust.
- Name the Right People: The law respects written instructions. Pick your agents, state their rights. Put digital assets front and center in your planning—no guessing later.
- Act on Provider Tools: Fill out Google’s or Facebook’s preferences now. Apple lets you add legacy contacts for a reason. Use it, even if you have an estate plan already.
- Keep the List Updated: Life shifts, accounts change. Set a reminder to revise your digital asset inventory each year with your attorney.
Missouri families who plan ahead don’t lose their stories or their savings to closed doors and empty logins. The key is to start early, work with someone who knows the law, and treat digital property as real as land or life insurance. Otherwise, it all fades at the click of a button, invisible and gone.
