At the risk of beating the dead horse about digital assets, some articles need to be mocked.  This recent WSJ article deserves derision for making a simple topic – how to access on-line accounts of a deceased person – stupidly complex.

Suggestions include the creation of a social media will with a review of each web site’s policies, the nomination of a digital or social media executor, and creation of digital asset trust to avoid those assets going through the probate process.  My responses to these ideas, in order are:  a standard will suffices, the executor should be able to address on-line issues and if he can not he should not be the executor dealing with assets with a monetary value, and only an idiot would list a digital account as a probate asset to be disposed of.  I suspect that some people think that there is money to be made from that idiot by selling him a trust that he does not need.

My advice remains creating a list of passwords accessible at death by the executor.  Simple is better and often times less expensive.