The personal representatives (PRs) of an estate have a duty to administer the estate and this includes dealing with all the deceased’s digital assets, including online accounts and profiles even if they have no monetary or immediate value.

While it is estimated that there are already over two million people in the UK who hold some form of cryptoasset, to date relatively few people have died with such assets in their estate and this is still a developing area of law and practice. More generally, the vast majority of the UK population is likely to have some sort of digital profile or digital asset in their estate on death. For information on what are considered to be digital assets, see Practice Note: Dealing with digital assets after death—What are digital assets?

This Checklist deals with specific issues for PRs to consider where the estate contains digital assets, including cryptoassets. It focuses solely on issues relating to digital assets rather than physical assets and should be read in conjunction with Estate administration—file checklist.