Guide

Digital estate planning starts as an inventory, not a product tour

Most families do not fail estate planning because they lack a PDF. They fail it in the first week, when nobody can say which bank, which insurer, or which email address was the one that mattered. A digital estate plan is the list of those facts, kept current, plus a decision about when another person may see them.

Write the map in four piles

Start with institutions, not balances. For each account, note the provider, the kind of account, the country, and where the statements live. A fictional example is enough to see the shape: "Northwind Brokerage, taxable account, Luxembourg, annual PDF in the blue folder labelled NWB." The exact number can be approximate. The person who has to call the institution needs the name and the reference, not a live feed.

Second, insurance and pensions. Policy numbers, the broker's name, and whether a beneficiary form exists. Beneficiary forms often beat the will. If the form is stale, the inventory should say so, and the fix happens at the provider, not inside a vault.

Third, property and debts. The address, the notary or lawyer who handled the purchase, the lender, and where the deed copy is. A mortgage does not disappear because a ledger says the home is owned outright. Say what is owed.

Fourth, the human list. The accountant, the person who has the spare house key, the adult child who already knows about one account and not the others. Instructions belong here too: "Call the broker before you try to move anything. Do not close the email account until you have exported the bills."

Leave the secrets out

A useful inventory becomes dangerous if it also holds the password, the seed phrase, or the authenticator backup. Those are the means of taking over the account, not a description of it. Put them in a password manager's own emergency-access feature, or on paper in a place you have already told someone about. The vault's job is to point at that place. Heemnota is built on that split on purpose.

Decide the moment of sharing

Some notes should be visible to a partner now. Some should wait until you cannot act. Those are different products wearing the same word "share." Immediate sharing is a copy you approve while you are here. A dead-man's switch is a timer plus a grace period, and it is a weak signal: travel, illness, and a missed email all look the same to a clock. If the contents are sensitive, add people who must confirm before the packet opens. They should be people who would notice a false alarm, not people who want the outcome.

Keep it boring and current

An inventory from five years ago is a list of closed accounts. Pick a review interval you will actually meet, and check in when you review. The check-in is not a ritual. It is the difference between a release that reflects your life and a release that surprises everyone, including you, after a long trip.

None of this is legal advice, and none of it drafts a will. If you have property in more than one country, or children, or a business, talk to a lawyer who practices where you live. The inventory makes that conversation shorter. It does not replace it.