What happens to your online life when you’re gone ??  Your “stuff”? It’s not where it used to be!

An Estate used to be things you could hold. That’s not how it works now. It lives online, and your partner having some phone passwords is not a good plan. It won’t hold up.

If you have cryptocurrency;  an online business, a blended family or a carer for an aged parent, you really need to be talking to us. Reverse-engineering their or your online presence after passing is a nightmare. Most Wills contain none of this.  Take the 10-minute SELF REVIEW and check your situation here ;

Phoenix Law work with Queensland clients from first-time will-makers to families with substantial crypto holdings and online businesses. We can review your existing Will, draft proper digital asset provisions, help you build a secure access plan, and coordinate with your accountant on the tax side where it matters. CALL +61731800908 or email – info@phoenix-law.com.au | Level 8, 320 Adelaide Street, Brisbane. #DigitalAssets #cryptocurrency #phoenixlaw #brisbanelawyers #MultilingualLawyers #AgedParents #BlendedFamily

What Happens to Your Online Life When You’re Gone? – A Queensland Guide to Digital Succession

Think about the last hour of your day yesterday. You probably checked your phone. Maybe replied to a few emails. Scrolled through some photos. Logged into your banking app. Perhaps you opened a crypto exchange to check a balance, posted on Instagram, or downloaded a file from the cloud.

Now think about your will. Does it say anything about any of that?

For most Queenslanders, the honest answer is “No”. And that’s the problem we want to talk about.

Your “stuff” isn’t where it used to be

A generation ago, an estate was mostly things you could touch. A house, a car, jewellery, bank books, share certificates, photo albums on a shelf. When someone passed away, the executor knew where to look because everything had a physical home.

That’s not how life works anymore. Today, a meaningful chunk of what you own — and a huge chunk of what matters to you — lives online. Photos sit in iCloud or Google Photos. Money moves through online-only bank accounts and cryptocurrency wallets. Family memories are scattered across Facebook, Instagram, and group chats. Some Queenslanders run entire businesses out of an Etsy shop, a Shopify store, or a monetised YouTube channel. Others hold thousands of dollars in NFTs, gaming accounts, or domain names.

All of this is part of your estate. Almost none of it is automatically dealt with by a standard will.

A quick reality check on Queensland law

Queensland’s Succession Act 1981 was written when “online” wasn’t really a word. It doesn’t mention cryptocurrency, social media, or cloud storage anywhere. The courts treat digital assets as a form of intangible personal property, which means they get caught up in the usual rules about specific gifts and residue — but the Act offers no special pathway for accessing them.

The broader legal landscape, however, is finally moving. In April 2026, Australia’s first comprehensive digital assets law — the Corporations Amendment (Digital Assets Framework) Act — received Royal Assent. It brings crypto exchanges and custody providers under the same Australian Financial Services Licence regime that governs banks and stockbrokers. For estates, this is genuinely helpful: where your crypto sits with a regulated Australian exchange, your executor will increasingly deal with a business that has formal protocols for deceased customers, much like a bank.

But — and it’s a big but — this only helps with assets held through licensed intermediaries. The moment you self-custody (your own wallet, your own seed phrase, your own hardware device), no regulator can compel anyone to give your family access. The blockchain doesn’t care about a grant of probate.

Why “I’ll just leave the passwords somewhere” isn’t a plan

Here’s a conversation we have all the time:

“Don’t worry, my partner knows my phone passcode.”

It sounds reassuring. It almost never holds up.

Phones now use biometric locks. Banking apps require two-factor authentication that texts a code to the locked phone. Crypto exchanges send verification codes to email accounts that are also locked. Many people use a password manager, but if no one knows the master password, the whole vault is sealed. We’ve seen families who knew exactly which exchange held their parent’s crypto, had the email login, and still couldn’t get in because they couldn’t intercept the SMS code being sent to a phone they couldn’t unlock.

The other common approach — writing passwords on a sticky note in the desk drawer — has the opposite problem. It works, but it’s also a security disaster while you’re alive. Anyone who walks past has the keys to your financial life.

A proper plan sits between these extremes: organised, secure, accessible to the right person at the right time, and updated as things change.

The four things every digital succession plan needs

We break it down for clients into four parts. None of them are complicated on their own. The trick is doing all four together.

One: a written inventory. Not your will — a separate, private document that lists what digital assets you actually have. Bank accounts, super logins, crypto holdings (and which wallets or exchanges they sit on), email accounts, social media, cloud storage, domain names, online businesses, subscription services with stored value, gaming accounts with purchases. You don’t need to value them. You need to make sure your executor knows they exist. You’d be amazed how often significant assets are discovered months after probate because no one knew where to look.

Two: an access plan. This is the practical bit — how does the right person actually get in? For most Queenslanders, the cleanest solution is a reputable password manager with an “emergency access” feature, where a nominated person can request access and receive it after a waiting period you set. For self-custodied crypto, the access plan needs to cover seed phrases and any hardware devices. The plan should also explain how to unlock your phone, because without that, two-factor authentication becomes an impenetrable wall.

Three: the will itself. This is where your solicitor comes in. Your will should specifically acknowledge digital assets, give your executor express authority to deal with them, and — for anything of real value — include specific bequests rather than letting them fall into residue. For larger crypto holdings, a testamentary trust can offer asset protection and tax planning advantages that an outright gift can’t. One critical point: passwords, PINs, and seed phrases should never go inside your will. Once probate is granted, your will becomes a public document. Anything sensitive needs to live in the separate access plan, not the will.

Four: the platform tools. The big tech companies have, slowly, built in their own legacy features. They’re not perfect, but they’re free and they save your family enormous amounts of stress.

The platform tools worth setting up this weekend

These take about 20 minutes total. They won’t replace a proper estate plan, but they fill gaps that no will can.

• Apple Legacy Contact lets you nominate someone who, with an access key plus your death certificate, can retrieve your photos, messages, notes, and files from iCloud. It won’t give them access to saved passwords or purchased media, but for most families, the photos alone are priceless. Set it up under Settings → your name → Sign-In & Security → Legacy Contact.

• Google’s Inactive Account Manager lets you choose what happens to your Gmail, Drive, and Photos after a period of inactivity you set (three to eighteen months). You can nominate up to ten trusted contacts to receive specific data. Find it at myaccount.google.com/inactive.

• Facebook Legacy Contact lets a nominated person memorialise your account, pin a final post, and manage friend requests. Set it up under Settings → Memorialisation Settings.

• Other platforms are inconsistent. Instagram and X have no legacy contact feature — accounts can only be memorialised or deleted on application by family. LinkedIn allows removal but no transfer of control. For these, the only practical option is making sure your executor has the login details through your access plan.

A few specific situations we see often

You hold cryptocurrency. Don’t assume your family will work it out. The single most common cause of permanent crypto loss in Australian estates is a seed phrase that was never written down, or was written down somewhere no one could find. If you self-custody, write the seed phrase on paper or metal, store it somewhere physically secure (not the same place as the hardware wallet), and make sure at least one trusted person knows it exists and how to access it.

You run an online business. Your Shopify store, Etsy shop, or monetised YouTube channel may be worth more than your car, but it’s tied to logins, payment processors, ABN registrations, supplier accounts, and customer lists that all need a handover plan. Without one, the business can be effectively destroyed within weeks of your death — even if the will leaves it to a capable family member.

You have a blended family. Digital assets are a common flashpoint in estate disputes because the rules are unclear and the values can be significant. Specific bequests and clear instructions reduce the risk of someone arguing later about who was meant to receive the crypto, the domain portfolio, or the monetised social accounts.

You’re a carer for an ageing parent. This is the situation we wish more families thought about earlier. Helping a parent set up legacy contacts, document their digital life, and review their will while they still can is far easier than reverse-engineering their online presence after they’ve passed.

The 10-minute self-check

If you can answer yes to all of these, you’re in good shape. If not, it’s time for a chat.

• I have a current will that mentions digital assets.
• Someone I trust knows what digital accounts and assets I hold.
• Someone I trust could unlock my phone if they needed to.
• My passwords are stored somewhere accessible to the right person at the right time — not written on paper at my desk, and not only in my head.
• For any cryptocurrency I self-custody, there’s a secure record of how to access it.
• I’ve set up legacy contacts on Apple, Google, and Facebook (whichever I use).
• I’ve reviewed all of the above in the last twelve months.

Most people we see can tick maybe two or three. That’s normal — this is a new area, and the law and the technology have both moved faster than most estate plans. The point isn’t to feel guilty about gaps. The point is to close them.

How Phoenix Law can help

We work with Queensland clients across the spectrum — from first-time will-makers to families with substantial crypto holdings and online businesses — to make sure their estate plans actually reflect their lives in 2026. We can review your existing will, draft proper digital asset provisions, help you build a secure access plan, and coordinate with your accountant on the tax side where it matters.

The conversation is usually shorter than people expect, and the relief afterwards is usually bigger than people expect.

CALL +61731800908 or email – info@phoenix-law.com.au | Level 8, 320 Adelaide Street, Brisbane. #DigitalAssets #cryptocurrency #phoenixlaw #brisbanelawyers #MultilingualLawyers #AgedParents #BlendedFamily