A few years ago, a client’s son called me from his late father’s apartment in Manhattan. He was holding two items—a beautifully bound last will and a cryptic note with a 24-word password. The will meticulously divided a significant portfolio of real estate and securities. The password, we later discovered, was the only key to a cryptocurrency wallet worth nearly a million dollars. The will never mentioned it.
This is the new reality of estate planning. The core principles of stewardship and legacy remain unchanged, but the assets we must protect and the laws governing them are in constant flux. A plan drafted even five years ago may now have dangerous blind spots. It’s my job to help families see them before they become crises for the next generation.
The Digital Inheritance Dilemma
A significant portion of our lives now exists online. This creates a new class of property—digital assets—that traditional estate plans often ignore. This is not just about cryptocurrency. It includes family photos stored in the cloud, valuable domain names, and social media accounts that hold sentimental or even commercial value. Who has the right to access them when you are gone?
Without explicit instructions, your executor—the person you name to manage your estate—may be legally barred from accessing your digital life. Tech companies have their own terms of service, which create immense legal and practical hurdles for grieving families. They can spend months in a frustrating loop of customer service and legal demands, or worse, the assets could be lost forever.
A deliberate plan for these assets is not just prudent; it is a core part of a modern fiduciary’s duty. This involves creating an inventory of your digital property and granting your trustee or executor the specific legal authority they need to manage, access, or dispose of these assets according to your wishes.
The Complications of Remote Work and Domicile
The rise of remote work has created newfound freedom for many executives and professionals. But that freedom can create profound legal ambiguity. If you own a brownstone in Brooklyn but have spent the better part of the last two years working from a home in Florida, where is your legal domicile? The answer has massive implications for your estate.
New York has a state estate tax—Florida does not. The difference can amount to hundreds of thousands or even millions of dollars. Tax authorities examine a wide range of factors to determine your true domicile, including where you vote, where your car is registered, where you spend the most time, and even where your closest family and social ties are. An unintentional domicile can subject your entire estate to taxes you never planned for.
This is not a matter to be left to chance. It requires intentional planning to clearly establish your domicile and structure your affairs to align with your long-term goals. For high-net-worth individuals with ties to multiple states, this has become one of the most critical conversations we have.
The New Rules for Signing Your Documents
For centuries, the signing of a will was a formal, in-person ceremony. The pandemic changed that out of necessity, and some of those changes are here to stay. In 2023, New York permanently authorized remote online notarization, fundamentally changing how certain legal documents can be executed.
Under New York Executive Law § 135-c, notaries can now perform their duties for individuals who are not physically present, using secure audio-visual technology. This offers great convenience, especially for clients with mobility issues or those who are traveling. However, it also introduces new requirements for identity verification and record-keeping that must be strictly followed. An improperly executed remote notarization could create an opening for someone to later challenge the validity of a trust or power of attorney in Surrogate’s Court.
While technology makes the process more accessible, the legal standards for due execution have not been relaxed. We must be more deliberate than ever to ensure that every document we prepare is not only convenient for our clients but legally unassailable.
The law is not static. It evolves to meet the realities of how we live. A well-crafted estate plan is not a document you sign and forget. It is a living strategy that must be reviewed as your life, your assets, and the law itself change. Stewardship demands nothing less.
The first step in adapting your plan is to understand where it might be vulnerable. I invite you to schedule a review of your existing will or trust to identify how these recent shifts in the law may have impacted your family’s legacy.
