- No UK law sets out who can reach a dead person’s online accounts. The provider’s terms and tools decide.
- The Property (Digital Assets etc) Act 2025 confirms that digital things can be property. It does not give families access to accounts.
- Wills in England and Wales become public after probate, so never put passwords in one.
- Logging in with a dead person’s password risks breaking the Computer Misuse Act 1990.
The UK has no statute that deals with access to digital accounts on death. In practice, what happens depends on each provider’s terms of service, any tools the person set up, and ordinary succession law. This page is general information, not legal advice.
What the law says
No specific statute
Executors deal with the estate as a whole: valuing it, dealing with Inheritance Tax, applying for probate and then distributing it as the will or the law sets out. Nothing in UK law tells Google, Apple or Facebook what to give them. Which? said in September 2024 that there are currently no legal rules for how digital assets are dealt with when you die.
The Property (Digital Assets etc) Act 2025
This Act received Royal Assent on 2 December 2025 and came into force the same day. It has two sections. The main one says that a thing, including something digital or electronic, is not prevented from being personal property just because it doesn’t fit the two traditional categories of property.
That matters for assets like crypto-tokens, because confirming they can be property supports treating them as part of an estate. (For crypto itself, see our sister site on crypto inheritance.)
The Act says nothing about wills, executors or access to online accounts, and it covers England and Wales and Northern Ireland, not Scotland. A common misconception is that it lets families into a dead person’s accounts. It doesn’t.
Electronic wills are not valid yet
The Law Commission recommended in May 2025 that electronic wills should be allowed. That is only a recommendation: it is now for the Government to decide, and electronic wills are not yet valid in England and Wales.
Lasting powers of attorney end on death
A lasting power of attorney (LPA) lets someone manage your affairs while you are alive. It usually ends when you die, and the death must be reported to the Office of the Public Guardian. From then on the executor is in charge, not the attorney.
Section 1 of the Computer Misuse Act 1990 makes it an offence to access a computer, program or data knowing the access is unauthorised. A Law Society article says this covers accessing an online account after someone’s death without authority, and that this authority has to come from the provider, not from the person who died. We found no reported prosecution of a relative, so treat it as a legal risk rather than a common outcome. Use the provider’s official process instead of a password list.
What it means if you are planning ahead
- Use the providers’ own tools. Google Inactive Account Manager, Apple Legacy Contact and Facebook’s legacy contact are the clearest way to choose who gets what. See our guides to Google and Apple.
- Keep passwords out of your will. After probate in England and Wales, anyone can order a copy of the probate record, including the will, for £16. Records go online about 14 days after the grant. Law Society guidance, as reported by the Law Gazette, is to leave a list of accounts instead.
- Choose an executor who understands your digital life. There is no separate “digital executor” in English law. A will can appoint a digitally competent executor, possibly limited to a defined class of assets. A letter of wishes can guide them but is not binding. Our page on naming a digital executor covers this.
- Write it down separately. A letter of instruction can list your accounts and say where access details are kept.
Most people haven’t done this yet. In Law Society research reported in January 2021, 93% of people with a will had not included any digital assets.
What it means for executors and family
Your authority comes from the grant of probate (if there is a will) or letters of administration (if there isn’t). Even with a grant, providers apply their own rules, and several are built around US or Irish law:
- If Google approves a request for a deceased user’s data, it asks for a US court order.
- Microsoft needs a valid subpoena or court order. For European customers, orders are served on Microsoft Ireland Operations Ltd.
- Yahoo releases the contents of UK accounts only with an Irish court order.
- Apple doesn’t list the UK among the places where documents other than a court order are accepted, so check with Apple directly.
A grant of probate on its own may not be enough for content. Closing an account usually needs less: Yahoo, for example, asks for a written request, the death certificate, the document appointing the executor and your ID. Ask for any data you want before asking for closure, because Google, for one, can’t release contents once an account is closed.
Scotland
In Scotland the equivalent of probate is confirmation, a court document granted through the sheriff court that gives executors authority to collect the deceased’s property. Estates worth £36,000 or less can use a simpler small-estate procedure.
The gov.uk probate search does not cover Scotland: GOV.UK points to ScotlandsPeople, and Scottish Courts says confirmations from 1 January 1987 are held by the sheriff courts, with older ones at National Records of Scotland. The 2025 Property Act does not extend to Scotland.
Documents usually needed
Expect to need several copies of the death certificate and, where an organisation asks for it, the grant of probate, letters of administration or confirmation. Each organisation sets its own threshold for when a grant is required. Our page on the documents you need after a death covers fees, timings and Tell Us Once.
If a real decision turns on this, such as whether to apply for a court order, a solicitor can confirm the position for your situation.