Digital Assets in a Utah Estate Plan

Short answer: Utah has adopted the Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (Utah Code Title 75A, Chapter 6, effective September 1, 2024), which governs whether a personal representative, agent, or trustee can access your email, social media, cloud storage, and other online accounts after your death or incapacity. Access follows a priority hierarchy — what you set up through an online tool (like Google's or Facebook's own legacy settings) generally overrides what your will or power of attorney says, which in turn overrides the platform's own terms of service.

Who this guide is for

Anyone doing Utah estate planning who wants their digital accounts — email, social media, photos, cloud storage, financial accounts — properly addressed, not left in legal limbo.

Why digital assets are genuinely different from traditional property

Unlike a bank account or a house, most digital accounts are governed by a terms of service agreement with the platform (Google, Facebook, Apple, etc.) — and without specific legal authority, those terms often don't automatically let a family member or personal representative step in and access the account, even with a death certificate in hand. Utah's law exists specifically to give fiduciaries a legal path around this problem.

The priority hierarchy

Utah's framework generally works in three tiers, in order of priority:

1. An online tool provided by the platform itself — many major platforms (Google's Inactive Account Manager, Facebook's Legacy Contact, for example) let you designate in advance who can access your account and how. If you've used one of these, it generally controls, overriding even what your will says.
2. Your estate planning documents — your will, trust, or power of attorney can explicitly grant (or restrict) a fiduciary's access to digital assets, if you haven't used a platform's own tool.
3. The platform's terms of service — if neither of the above exists, the custodian's own terms of service agreement governs what a fiduciary can access.

This means the most effective, highest-priority step is often the simplest one: actually going into your major accounts and setting up their built-in legacy/inactive-account tools, not just relying on a general estate planning document.

What a fiduciary can access under Utah law

A fiduciary with authority over a decedent's (or incapacitated person's) property generally has the right to access digital assets that aren't otherwise held by a custodian or subject to a conflicting terms-of-service restriction. For an agent acting under a power of attorney specifically, a custodian is generally required to disclose a catalog of digital assets and electronic communications upon proper written request — though the content of private communications can require a more specific showing of authority.

The same fiduciary duties apply here as elsewhere

Utah law applies the same duties a fiduciary already owes for tangible property — care, loyalty, and confidentiality — to digital asset management too. This isn't a lesser-regulated category just because it's digital; a personal representative mishandling digital assets faces the same kind of accountability as mishandling any other estate property (see Utah Personal Representative Duties).

What to actually do

1. Use each major platform's own legacy/inactive-account tool where available — this is the highest-priority instruction under Utah law.
2. Explicitly address digital assets in your will, trust, and power of attorney — don't assume general language about "all my property" adequately covers this.
3. Keep a private, secure record of what accounts exist (not passwords in the will itself, which becomes a public court record — use a secure password manager or a separate confidential document instead).

Frequently asked questions

Does a personal representative automatically get my email password after I die? No — access has to come through the legal framework described above (a platform's own tool, your estate documents, or the platform's terms), not simply by having authority over your estate generally.

Should I put my passwords in my will? No — a will generally becomes a public court record during probate; use a secure, separate method (a password manager, or a confidential letter of instruction) to communicate access information instead.

Does this cover cryptocurrency and other digital financial assets? Cryptocurrency and similar digital financial assets raise their own additional considerations beyond standard digital assets like email or social media — this is worth discussing specifically with an estate planning attorney if it applies to you.