Digital Estate Planning NZ: What Happens to Your Online Accounts When You Die

When someone dies in New Zealand, their executor gets legal authority over the estate's physical assets — bank accounts, property, shares. Their digital life is a different story. Most online platforms have their own rules about what happens when an account holder dies, and those rules often conflict with what the executor needs to do.

If you don't plan for your digital assets, your executor faces a slow, frustrating process of navigating each platform's bereavement policy individually — and some accounts may be permanently inaccessible.

What Counts as a Digital Asset

Digital assets fall into several categories, each with different legal and practical implications:

Financial accounts — online banking, investment platforms, cryptocurrency wallets and exchange accounts, PayPal, Wise, and similar services. These have real monetary value and the executor needs access to consolidate estate funds.

Subscription services — Netflix, Spotify, iCloud, domain registrations, web hosting. These generate ongoing charges that need to be cancelled. Many continue billing indefinitely until someone intervenes.

Social media — Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, X/Twitter. These don't have financial value (usually), but families often want them memorialised or deleted.

Email — Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo. Email is often the key to everything else — password resets, two-factor authentication, and digital correspondence that may contain important estate information.

Cloud storage — Google Drive, Dropbox, iCloud. May contain important documents, photos, or business files.

Business and professional accounts — domain names, website logins, business software, client management systems. For sole traders, these can have significant value.

Cryptocurrency — Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other holdings in self-custody wallets. Without the private keys or seed phrase, these are permanently and irrecoverably lost.

The Legal Landscape in New Zealand

New Zealand doesn't have specific digital estate legislation. There's no equivalent of the US Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act. Instead, executors rely on their general authority under the grant of probate — but platforms aren't always obligated to honour that authority, especially when they're incorporated overseas and subject to different privacy laws.

In practice, this means:

• New Zealand banks will generally deal with the executor after presentation of the death certificate and grant of probate, but they do not restore the deceased's online banking access
• International platforms (Google, Apple, Meta) follow their own bereavement policies, which vary significantly and may require separate proof of death, court orders, or specific request forms
• Cryptocurrency on exchanges can usually be released to the estate through the exchange's bereavement process — but crypto in self-custody wallets has no third party to appeal to

Platform-by-Platform Reality

Google (Gmail, Drive, Photos, YouTube) — offers an Inactive Account Manager that lets you choose what happens to your account after a set period of inactivity. You can designate up to 10 people to receive data downloads. Without this setup, next of kin can request account access or data through Google's bereavement process — but it's slow and not guaranteed.

Apple (iCloud, Apple ID) — the Digital Legacy programme lets you name Legacy Contacts who can access your account after death. Without a designated contact, accessing someone's Apple account requires a court order — even with probate.

Facebook/Meta — offers memorialisation (locks the profile in a memorial state) or deletion. A Legacy Contact can manage the memorialised profile. Without pre-designation, the process requires uploading proof of death to Meta's online form.

Banks (NZ) — straightforward once you have probate. Online access is typically frozen and the executor works through branch channels.

How to Plan Your Digital Estate

1. Create a Digital Asset Inventory

List every online account, platform, and digital service you use. Include:

• The platform name and URL
• Your username or email address used to register
• The type of asset (financial, subscription, social, storage)
• Whether it has monetary value
• Any specific wishes (delete, memorialise, transfer)

Critical rule: don't put passwords in your will. Wills become public court records after probate is granted. Instead, store login credentials in a password manager and give your executor the master password through a separate, secure method — a sealed letter held with your solicitor, a secure note in your estate file, or a dedicated password manager family-sharing feature.

2. Use Platform-Specific Tools

Set up the bereavement features each platform offers while you're alive:

• Google's Inactive Account Manager
• Apple's Digital Legacy programme
• Facebook's Legacy Contact designation

These take minutes to configure and save your executor weeks of bureaucratic back-and-forth.

3. Address Cryptocurrency Specifically

If you hold any cryptocurrency, your executor needs:

• The exchange name and your account details (for exchange-held crypto)
• The seed phrase or private keys (for self-custody wallets)
• Clear instructions on what to do with the holdings

Store seed phrases in a fireproof safe or with your solicitor — not in a digital file that could be compromised. Without these, self-custody crypto dies with you. There is no recovery mechanism, no customer service to contact, no court order that can retrieve them.

4. Cancel Recurring Charges

Include a list of all subscription services and recurring payments. An active subscription can bill for months after a death before anyone notices — and disputing those charges retroactively is difficult.

What Executors Should Do Immediately

If you're an executor dealing with a digital estate:

1. Don't delete anything until you've confirmed there's no financial or evidentiary value
2. Screenshot or export important correspondence and documents from email and cloud storage before accounts are memorialised or closed
3. Cancel subscriptions promptly — check the deceased's email and bank statements for recurring charges
4. Contact each platform's bereavement team with the death certificate and grant of probate
5. Secure cryptocurrency if you have access — transfer it to a new estate-controlled wallet immediately

Our New Zealand End-of-Life Planning Guide includes a digital asset inventory template and the step-by-step process for each major platform's bereavement procedure — so your executor doesn't have to figure it out platform by platform during an already overwhelming time.

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