Considerations when Advising the Testator
| Author | James Normington |
| Pages | 21-34 |
2 Considerations when
Advising the Testator
Before anything else, preparation is the key to success.
Alexander Graham Bell
The advisory aspect of the probate practitioner’s work can be extremely
rewarding. It offers an opportunity for client education, inter-generational
planning and inter-disciplinary work with tax professionals. These
preparatory discussions afford an opportunity for practitioners to learn
about individual clients’ digital footprints and their respective digital assets
and quasi-digital assets. It is important for the probate practitioner to both
educate and be educated by the client.
There are many aspects of life which now take place in the digital
environment. Clients in most cases do not comprehend the extent of their
digital footprint or the impact it has on their estate. Equally, they may not
comprehend the matters that need to be considered or the actions that
need to be taken. It is also easy for the client to underestimate the amount
of work that needs to be undertaken when dealing with digital assets.
In order to ensure that all areas of the client’s digital footprint are explored
it is important to approach the topic in a systematic fashion. There are a
number of areas where information gathering should be concentrated;
these core areas are financial digital assets, social media and non-financial
digital assets. A discussion of the client’s digital footprint will likely start
with a conversation about their most frequently used social media
platforms, such as Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, etc, and then cover non-
financial digital assets, such as Dropbox, online banking, followed by
purely digital financial assets, such as crypto-currency. Progressing
through these areas in a systematic way will ensure that no stone is left
unturned. In order to assist in these discussions, a checklist may be made
available to the lay client for them to complete in advance of any in-person
meeting. A suitable checklist can be found at Appendix A2.
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