Digital Assets in Your Kansas Estate Plan

Your executor can access your bank accounts, sell your house, and distribute your furniture — but without specific legal authority, they may not be able to read your email, access your cryptocurrency, or manage your online business accounts. Kansas has addressed this gap through the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA), codified under K.S.A. 58-4801 et seq., but the law only works if your estate plan explicitly authorizes access.

What RUFADAA Covers

Kansas adopted RUFADAA to give personal representatives, trustees, and agents under a power of attorney legal authority to access, manage, or terminate digital accounts belonging to a deceased or incapacitated person. The law covers:

• Email accounts (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo)
• Social media profiles (Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn)
• Cloud storage (Google Drive, Dropbox, iCloud)
• Online financial accounts (PayPal, Venmo, cryptocurrency exchanges)
• Digital media purchases (Kindle, iTunes, Steam)
• Domain names and web hosting accounts
• Online business platforms (Shopify, Etsy, Amazon seller accounts)

The Content vs. Catalog Distinction

RUFADAA creates a critical distinction between accessing a "catalog" of digital communications and accessing the actual content.

Catalog access means the fiduciary can see metadata: who sent a message, who received it, the date, and the subject line. Online custodians (Google, Apple, Meta) must provide catalog information upon proper request.

Content access — reading the actual text of emails, messages, and posts — requires one of three forms of consent:

1. Online tool. Some platforms offer built-in legacy or inactive account tools (like Google's Inactive Account Manager or Apple's Legacy Contact). If the deceased used these tools to grant access, the fiduciary can access content.
2. Estate planning document. The deceased's will, trust, or power of attorney explicitly grants the fiduciary authority to access the content of electronic communications.
3. Terms of service consent. The platform's terms of service allow access (rare — most platform terms restrict access).

Without any of these, the custodian discloses only the catalog. Your executor can see that you received 47 emails last Tuesday but cannot read any of them.

How to Include Digital Assets in Your Plan

Grant explicit authority in your will or trust. Include a clause that authorizes your personal representative or successor trustee to access, manage, copy, delete, and distribute your digital assets and the content of your electronic communications. This clause satisfies RUFADAA's requirement for written consent.

Create a digital asset inventory. List every account: email providers, social media, financial platforms, cryptocurrency wallets, domain registrars, cloud storage, and subscription services. Include the username or email address associated with each account. Store this inventory separately from your will — wills become public records during probate, and you do not want passwords in a court file.

Store credentials securely. Use a password manager (1Password, Bitwarden, LastPass) and ensure your executor knows how to access it. Alternatively, store a printed credential list in a sealed envelope in a secure location (a safe, a locked filing cabinet) that your executor can access. Hardware wallets for cryptocurrency need their seed phrases stored separately.

Use platform-specific tools. Set up Google's Inactive Account Manager, Apple's Legacy Contact, and Facebook's Legacy Contact. These platform tools take legal priority over your will under RUFADAA — if the platform tool says "delete everything," that overrides a will clause granting access.

Cryptocurrency: The Highest-Stakes Digital Asset

Cryptocurrency presents a unique estate planning challenge because there is no custodian to contact. If you hold crypto in a self-custodied wallet (hardware wallet, paper wallet, or software wallet on your device), the private keys or seed phrase are the only way to access the funds. Lose the keys and the crypto is permanently inaccessible — there is no customer service line, no account recovery, no court order that can retrieve it.

Under K.S.A. 58-4815, your fiduciary has legal authority to access digital assets stored on your devices. But legal authority is useless without the actual private keys. Include clear instructions for locating your hardware wallet and accessing the seed phrase in your digital asset inventory.

If your crypto is held on an exchange (Coinbase, Kraken), the exchange functions as a custodian and will typically work with the personal representative upon receiving a certified death certificate and letters testamentary.

Account Termination

Under K.S.A. 58-4815(g), fiduciaries can request the termination of digital accounts by submitting a written request along with a certified death certificate and their letters of appointment (or small estate affidavit). This is particularly relevant for subscription services, social media profiles, and email accounts that you want closed rather than left active indefinitely.

The Kansas Estate Planning Kit includes a digital asset planning section with the specific RUFADAA provisions that apply in Kansas and guidance on integrating digital assets into your broader estate plan.

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