When a Manhattan executive walked into my office last year with a six-figure contract from an Arizona cryonics facility, we had to have a blunt conversation about the limits of the law. He wanted to fund a private trust to maintain his preserved body indefinitely, then return his wealth to him upon successful reanimation. Decades of urban legends fuel this concept—most famously, the enduring myth that Walt Disney rests in a frozen state beneath a California theme park ride. Disney actually died of lung cancer in 1966, and his ashes were interred in Glendale. But the legal questions raised by this persistent myth are real, and they collide violently with centuries of established inheritance law.
We deal in the realities of death, taxes, and family dynamics. When a client wants to plan for immortality, the legal friction is immediate. Cryogenic preservation fascinates many, but executing it legally requires understanding exactly where science fiction ends and Surrogate’s Court begins.
The Legal Finality of Clinical Death
In the eyes of the court, a person is either alive or dead. There is no legal purgatory—no “paused” status for the cryogenically preserved. Once a physician signs a death certificate, the machinery of probate begins. Ownership of property is a right reserved exclusively for the living. You cannot hold title to real estate, maintain a bank account, or direct a stock portfolio while clinically deceased.
When a person dies, their assets must vest in living beneficiaries through a will, a trust, or the laws of intestacy. Clients interested in cryonics often ask if we can simply place their assets in a trust, naming themselves as the future beneficiary upon their eventual revival. New York law actively prevents this infinite hoarding of wealth.
Under EPTL § 9-1.1—the statutory Rule Against Perpetuities—a private, non-charitable trust cannot last forever. Assets must vest in a recognizable, living person within a specific timeframe, traditionally measured by lives in being plus twenty-one years. The state will not allow you to tie up capital for three centuries while waiting for medical science to thaw you out. If you attempt to draft a trust that violates this rule, the courts will strike down the invalid provisions. Your wealth will likely pass to your next of kin immediately.
Securing Physical Remains Against Family Objections
If an individual truly wishes to pursue cryogenic preservation, the primary legal hurdle is not reviving their wealth, but securing the physical transfer of their remains. Cryonics relies on immediate, deliberate intervention upon clinical death. Family members frequently object to unconventional post-death wishes. This often leads to bitter litigation while time—and biological viability—slips away.
Under New York Public Health Law § 4201, you have the right to direct the disposition of your own remains. A passing mention in your will, however, is entirely insufficient. Families rarely locate or read wills until days or weeks after death—long past the window for cryogenic preservation. To ensure these wishes are honored, you must execute a legally binding Appointment of Agent to Control Disposition of Remains.
This document strips decision-making power from next-of-kin who might prefer a traditional burial. It grants that power to a designated custodian legally bound to execute your contract with the cryonics facility. Without this explicit statutory documentation, a grieving spouse or child can easily override your arrangements. We draft these documents to be aggressively clear, leaving hospital administrators and funeral directors with zero ambiguity about who holds the authority to release the body.
The Financial Mechanics of Preservation
Since you cannot use your estate to fund your own future reanimation, how do individuals actually pay for long-term preservation? You cannot own property while dead, but you can enter into binding contracts while alive. Most cryonics organizations require funding through life insurance.
The individual purchases a policy and names the cryonics facility as the sole beneficiary. Upon clinical death, the policy pays out directly to the organization, bypassing probate entirely. This arrangement ensures the facility has the capital required for the initial preservation and the long-term storage of the remains. It does, however, require immense faith in the facility’s corporate longevity. You are relying on a corporate entity to maintain its fiduciary duty to its preserved clients over centuries—surviving economic depressions, natural disasters, and changing legal landscapes.
Stewardship. That is what estate planning fundamentally comes down to. When you remove yourself from the equation permanently, who is watching over the legacy you left behind?
Structuring Generational Wealth Instead
Because you cannot legally own property while clinically dead, those intent on preservation must rethink their approach to legacy. Instead of attempting to draft an illegal “reanimation trust,” we look toward structuring generational wealth.
Through deliberate, long-term trust structures, an individual can ensure their wealth passes to their descendants in a protected manner. You can establish trusts that provide for your children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren, shielding those assets from creditors, lawsuits, and divorce. If, by some scientific miracle, you are revived a century later, you would legally awaken as a newly born, penniless individual. Your only financial recourse would be relying on the goodwill of your descendants—the legal beneficiaries of the trusts you established generations prior.
This is a sobering reality for clients who view cryonics as a path to personal immortality. The law requires you to let go of your assets. You can attempt to preserve your physical form, but your wealth must remain in the world of the living.
If you have specific, non-traditional wishes for your physical remains, relying on a standard will is a dangerous strategy that often ends in Surrogate’s Court litigation. Call our office to schedule an execution session for a statutory Appointment of Agent to Control Disposition of Remains.
