Passing on your favourite music (and other digital assets) to your loved ones may not be as easy as you think
Do you have unused air miles or loyalty points? Or digital books or music stored on e-readers or your phone? Most of us do nowadays, often with a value running into hundreds of pounds or more.
Now, here’s a question. What will happen to all these ‘digital’ assets when you die?
When making a Will, people often overlook their digital assets, either forgetting they have them or assuming they’ll go to their heirs with the rest of their assets. But it’s not as simple as that.
Unfortunately, there are no hard and fast rules about the inheritance rules relating to digital assets. It varies from asset to asset and loyalty programme to loyalty programme, and we’ve given some examples below.
These examples aren’t exhaustive, and terms and conditions
may change over time. But the general point will still stand: if you want to
pass on your digital assets, tell your solicitor about them, and read the small
print. If it says they expire with you, spend them instead.
Air miles
Some frequent flyer programmes state that points expire on
death; others allow them to be transferred to your heirs, but only if this is
specified in your Will. So read the Terms and Conditions, and check with the
provider if necessary.
Loyalty card points
This varies from business to business, and the Terms and
Conditions should specify. It may be necessary to include them in your Will, so
check with your solicitor.
Cryptocurrencies
It would certainly appear that digital currencies such as
Bitcoin should be treated as property for inheritance purposes, and ought to be
included in your Will. However, unless you tell your heirs the private ‘key’ to
decrypt them, they won’t be able to access them. So, you need to find a way to
pass this on securely.
E-books, iTunes etc
A few years back, it was claimed that Hollywood star Bruce Willis was going to sue Apple because he couldn’t leave his huge iTunes library to his family. He didn’t, in fact, but the story raised a good point. When you pay for downloads, you’re buying a licence to access the asset, not the asset itself. This licence is not transferrable.
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