Digital Assets Estate Plan in Kentucky: What the Law Says About Your Online Accounts

Kentucky's Digital Assets Law

Kentucky adopted the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, codified under KRS Chapter 395A. This law governs how your personal representative, trustee, or power of attorney agent can access your digital assets after you die or become incapacitated.

Before this law, digital service providers like Google, Facebook, and Apple had no legal obligation to give your family access to your accounts — even with a court order. KRS 395A creates a legal framework that balances the deceased person's privacy with the fiduciary's need to manage the estate.

The Three-Tier Priority System

KRS 395A establishes a hierarchy for determining who can access your digital accounts:

Tier 1: Your instructions to the service provider. If you used an online tool provided by the service — like Google's Inactive Account Manager or Facebook's Legacy Contact — those settings override everything else. The platform follows the instructions you gave it directly.

Tier 2: Your estate planning documents. If you didn't use the platform's own tools, then directions in your will, trust, or power of attorney control access. You can explicitly grant or deny your personal representative access to specific types of digital content.

Tier 3: The platform's terms of service. If you gave no instructions anywhere, the platform's terms of service govern. Most terms of service default to restricting access, which means your family gets nothing.

The takeaway: if you want your family to be able to access your digital accounts, you need to either use the platform's built-in tools or explicitly address digital assets in your estate planning documents.

What Your Fiduciary Can and Can't Access

KRS 395A distinguishes between the "catalogue" of digital assets (a list of accounts and communications) and the "content" (the actual messages, files, and data within those accounts).

Your personal representative can access the catalogue — meaning they can see what accounts exist and receive metadata like sender names and subject lines. But they can only access the content if you explicitly authorized it in your will, trust, or power of attorney, or if a court orders disclosure.

This distinction matters for email accounts. Your executor may be able to see that you received an email from your bank, but they can't read the email itself unless you gave written consent. Without that consent, they may need to petition the court for access — adding time and expense to the estate administration.

Cryptocurrency and Self-Custody Wallets

Cryptocurrency creates a unique estate planning challenge. Unlike bank accounts or brokerage accounts, self-custodied crypto (held in a hardware wallet or software wallet where you control the private keys) cannot be accessed by anyone without those keys. There is no institution to contact, no customer service to call, and no court order that can compel a decentralized blockchain to release funds.

If you hold crypto in a self-custody wallet, your estate plan must include a secure method for your fiduciary to access the private keys or seed phrase. Options include:

• Storing the seed phrase in a fireproof safe with instructions in your will about its location
• Using a multi-signature wallet where your executor holds one of the required keys
• Storing encrypted key information with your attorney or in a safe deposit box

Kentucky's House Bill 701 clarified that holding crypto in a self-custodial wallet does not trigger money transmission licensing requirements — so your executor won't need a special license to manage your crypto holdings.

For crypto held on exchanges (Coinbase, Kraken, etc.), the exchange is the custodian and KRS 395A applies. Your personal representative can request access through the exchange's standard process for deceased account holders.

Building a Digital Asset Inventory

The most practical step you can take is creating a comprehensive inventory of your digital accounts. For each account, document:

• The service provider and URL
• Your username or email address associated with the account
• Whether you've set up the provider's built-in legacy tools
• Whether the account has financial value (crypto, PayPal, stored credits)
• Who should receive access

Store this inventory securely — not in an unencrypted document on your computer, which anyone could access, but in a location your fiduciary knows about and can reach when needed.

The Kentucky Basic Estate Planning Kit includes a digital asset audit worksheet designed for this purpose, plus template language you can add to your will explicitly authorizing your executor to access your digital accounts under KRS 395A.

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