How Important Are Digital Assets in the Rapid Growth of Technology in Contested Probate Claims?

The world is an ever-changing place. In the past couple of decades, this is truer than ever, with the rise in popularity of the digital world. But did you know that Wills can be contested on the basis of digital assets?  

A survey commissioned by the Law Society found that 93% of those who have a will have not included any digital assets in it. Meanwhile, just a quarter of the 1,000 respondents knew what will happen to these assets after they die.  

Ensuring that your law firm has the means to deal with enquiries based on digital assets is key, as, due to the prolonged effect the pandemic is having, the size of these assets is likely to grow further. 

What Are Digital Assets? 

Digital assets include all online investments. Examples include: 

• Online accounts such as PayPal 
• Email accounts 
• Social media accounts 
• Blogs or websites  
• Virtual currency such as Bitcoin 

With the rise in paperless statements they will only get bigger and more documents will move online. Therefore making sure they are included in Wills is important. 

Why Are Digital Assets Important? 

With the growth of technology, more documents will undoubtedly move to a more online format. This means that naturally these assets will become more important as time goes on. As emails have become more widely used, there may be important documents that are stored in emails, so someone would need access to the account to see the important documents. 

They are also important in the process of probate. The first step of probate is the Executor valuing the estate. If digital assets are not included, then they may not get an accurate value of the estate. 

Contesting A Will Based on Digital Assets 

There may be times when someone contests their loved one’s Will on the basis of digital assets. This means it is important that they are included. If someone wants to contest a Will based on digital assets, it is no different to contesting a Will based on physical assets. 

At mmadigital, we have a robust set of criteria when qualifying cases. So when we transfer cases to our panel of legal firms, we have detailed information about the nature of the claim against the Will, including the assets that are being contested. Ensuring that your law firm can deal with contested probate based on digital assets is key. This can mean we send you cases that are the highest quality possible. 

How We Can Help Your Law Firm 

Ultimately, here at mmadigital, our focus is delivering the highest number of the best quality cases we can. We do this by being proactive and staying ahead of the curve with the rapid growth of technology, and how it affects the claims market. We translate this to the cases that we send to our panel of legal firms. This is because we know what is important to both the legal firms and the customer.  

So why not join us? Contact us today to arrange a free demonstration of our lead generation platform.