For most of legal history, English law recognised two kinds of personal property: things you can possess (a car, a watch) and rights you can enforce (a bank balance, shares). Digital assets like cryptocurrency sat awkwardly between the two — clearly valuable, but hard to fit into either box. The Property (Digital Assets etc) Act 2025 fixed that.
What the Act says
The Act is short — essentially one operative section — and confirms that something is not prevented from being personal property merely because it is neither a thing in possession nor a thing in action. In plain English: digital assets such as crypto-tokens can be property in their own right, a "third category" of personal property.
For estate planning, that certainty matters. Property can be owned, so it can be inherited, gifted in a will, and dealt with by your executors like any other asset. Bitcoin, ether, NFTs and similar holdings are not a legal grey area any more — they are part of your estate, and if you die without dealing with them, the same intestacy rules apply to them as to everything else.
The practical problem the Act does not solve
Legal ownership is only half the story. A crypto wallet without its keys is, in practice, lost — there is no customer service line to call. Estimates of permanently inaccessible bitcoin run into the billions of pounds, much of it stranded by death. Your executors can only collect in what they can find and access. So a digital estate plan has two jobs: say who gets the assets, and make sure someone can actually reach them.
Never put passwords or keys in your will
This is the single most important rule. When your executors obtain probate, your will becomes a public document — anyone can order a copy. A seed phrase or password written into a will is a seed phrase published to the world. Instead, the will says who inherits; a separate, secure record says how to access it.
A simple digital asset checklist
- Inventory: list your wallets, exchange accounts, domain names, and anything else of value — without recording the credentials themselves in the list you share
- Access: store keys and recovery phrases securely (an encrypted vault, hardware wallet instructions, or a sealed letter with your will’s storage provider) and tell your executors it exists
- The will: cover digital assets through your residuary estate or as specific gifts, and consider giving your executors express power to deal with digital assets
- Accounts and subscriptions: most online accounts are licences governed by terms of service rather than property you can leave — check what each platform allows (many offer legacy or memorialisation settings)
- Sentimental assets: photos and messages stored in the cloud are often what families miss most; back them up somewhere your family can reach
Built for this from day one
Willful was built around the 2025 Act. The guided questions cover cryptocurrency, NFTs and online accounts as a matter of course, every will is reviewed by an SRA-regulated solicitor, and the encrypted vault gives you a safe place to leave access instructions — separate from the will itself, shared only with the people you choose.