0:01 hello and welcome to trust and Estates weekly I'm your host Kevin bemel and we're here every Monday morning at 10: am Pacific Time Well morning on the west coast anyway um and and in mountain time uh it's it's 11:00 am I I think I'm not mistaken um and then it's it's noon Central Time and it's 1 pm so it's good afternoon to all of you on the East Coast so thank you very much for joining me and today I'm going to talk about a a topic um it's not it's not a financial topic um it's it's more of a sort of um
0:39 logistical topic if you will if you will and that is what happens to a deedon social media accounts um a well what what needs to happen in terms of planning and what happens after the person passes away so I I'm I'm reminded of of some this is really the kind of the early days of social media um the um the the my high school choir teacher um had a Facebook
1:14 page and you know I'm sure you get the same thing um that you know you get these alerts that it's it's their birthday um and so every year I would post a greeting to his name was Larry to Larry wishing him happy birthday um and at one point I I got a message back saying that that he had passed away um and um they had left his page up as as kind of a memorial for him and it
1:52 took me I don't know two or three years to remember that in fact he had he had passed away as far as I know the page is still ph up on on Facebook now candidly you you would have thought they would have put something on the page you know in memorium or something like that but they didn't but whatever so and I I I I'm sorry to say that I I think it bothered um his uh his relatives um that I would post these happy birthday messages um I I I wasn't doing it of course to um make them sad
2:27 or anything it's just I I like I said took me sort of a couple of years for it to sink in that that he was gone so um you know this is a um an issue that needs to be dealt with if the person engaged in social media now um some people don't at all uh I I guess there's what four or five people in the world like that um but um it it is something that needs to be dealt with so I i' I've got a sort of a a combination um presentation um I've got a a PowerPoint on a few things um and
3:02 then I'm going to sort of go to some websit so you can see exactly what um the policies are for for different social media sites so um here we oh whoops wait a minute I've got the wrong thing here uh hold on one second to not sure what happened here uh that was last week's um presentation okay let's let's it's going to take a minute for it to upload so um while the presentation is is is uploading I I'll
3:38 continue um so um you know each social media site um has U you know at least some some sort of slight differences um but um the main thing is okay here we go that's uploaded and wow that's bizarre it's it doesn't want to upload the presentation okay well so here's what here's what I'll do I will uh I'll bring it up and I'll talk to you about what's on it and
4:16 uh and uh actually here's what I'll do over here and we'll we're going to try this once more okay let's see what happens here it says it's bringing up the right one but well you know the the suspense
4:54 is is uh you know really really going here um see the best late plans of mice and men they say um anyway there are some um some differences about how this works but if you are a an executive or an administrator or a trustee um that this ision issue that you should be aware of um and it's it's you know part of your responsibilities even though it's um oh I bet I know what the problem
5:33 is let's take a look at this again I bet I forgot to change the title let's see come on computer do your thing now it's it's going to spin here we go Wow have definitely having our challenges today okay
6:11 well yeah I I see what I did here I forgot to change the um I forgot to change the the the first the first slide so it should say um social media um de see social media accounts okay well you know it is what it is and and it's it's really just I don't know what's going on here but okay so I'm just going to talk to you about the various issues we'll have to foro the um um you know the the seeing the
6:46 PowerPoint so um let's talk first first of all on the planning side of things so one of the things to keep in mind as your plan as you're doing your own estate plan is that um you you should have a centralized place where you keep your login information for your various social media accounts now it should be you know you don't want them obviously spread all over the place it should be someplace private um you know as secure as the
7:21 place where you would keep important documents like like a copy of like your trust like your will Etc um you should have all of those login um names or email addresses and passwords available so that your executive your your the administrator of your estate um can access um those uh various accounts okay so so that's that's number one in terms of your your planning now the next thing um to do most of the social media sites will will
7:58 give your I'm going to just call it your personal representative whether it's a trustee administrator whatever they'll give your personal representative essentially two options one is to uh close the account and the other is to memorialize it meaning it'll be kept up in a essentially static State whatever was is there um at the time of your death will continue there um but um you know nothing nothing new can be added it's not an active account okay and so if you have a preference you should make
8:34 that known to your personal representative so that they know what your wishes are now if you don't care and or if you want it left up to um the people you leave behind so then say that as well say you know I I don't care whether you close it or memorialize it just you know figure out what um my you know family member and or friends want to do and and and and just do that that's also perfectly legitimate but in some way or other it'll be useful for your purple personal representative to
9:10 know what your wishes are in in regards to your social media as it is you know your financial wishes charitable wishes Etc okay so do take the time to think about that a little bit um and and decide um you know if if if you have a preference and if not um Express that you don't okay next make sure you communicate your wishes so if for example you don't want your social media accounts memorialized so make sure that your your loved ones
9:45 uh know about that okay it's nothing nothing to hide from them um it's it's you know it's just a matter of of this is what you want um and so um you know socialize it with them and explain to them why I mean I I I can't think of a reason off the top of my head but I'm I'm sure there are perfectly valid reasons out there why people don't want their social media um you know presence to continue um first of all there's I suppose there's always the chance it can be hacked into and and and and things
10:22 can be done that um the person would feel is inappropriate or they may feel that look you know my my time on the on on on this Mortal coil as Shakespeare calls it is over and there's no reason for me to in essence you know continue um that that kind of presence so whatever your wishes are communicate them to your loved ones make sure it's it's in your um estate planning documents um you and tell them so you can say look I've directed my personal representative my trustee or whatever um
10:57 to close the accounts or to Memorial ize them whatever um but make make sure that they know it um and and by the way um you know don't be surprised if they if if your loved ones um disagree with you so let's say you decide that um you want your accounts closed down they may disagree with you and say gosh you know it would be a comfort for us to you know for you to memorialize them it's you kind of like a little bit of you that that's still with us and since you're gone does it really matter um you know
11:33 that that you know they be shut down um as opposed to us who are still going to be here and you know we would like to keep them up conversely they could you know you may want to keep them up and they may say gosh you know we we really don't want to be reminded of of our loss you know every time we go online so we would really prefer that we be able to to close them down so certainly how have those conversations um and um and and and you know I I would recommend at least you know consider their wishes um you don't
12:09 necessarily have to do what they say of course um but I but I think it's it's it's wise to um get their input um as part of your decision-making process okay so so that's that's at the planning stage now um after death so now we're talking about what your um personal representative should do so um first of all and this this should be part of um sorry I'm allergies here today
12:44 um you you're um if you if you want or if you're the personal representative and you think you should you should download the data in any particular social media account okay and and that's one of the reasons by the way for making sure that your personal representative has your login credentials okay so they can go into your account um and and archive that data if they if they choose to especially if you want them to okay so maybe your your request to them may be shut down the accounts but archive
13:19 the data first okay well there you go so that so archive the data first and then um you'll notify um the the platforms um of you know the person's death now you'll you'll see as we go through we're going to go through I think three or four of them um you'll see that it says um that it has to be someone authorized to do so and I'll show you you know what they mean by that but but for now we'll just I'm just again we're gonna g to call it the personal representative as the personal
13:54 representative duly appointed all right you you have the authority to handle this matter as you do pretty much everything else okay and so um you can direct the uh social media companies to do whatever it is um either the decedent has requested be done or in your discretion in consultation with family members that you decide to need needs to be done okay so um you know if and I do want to stress this if the
14:30 deed didn't let uh you know make his wishes known so then I think you really as the personal representative you're obligated um to confer with the loved ones left behind um to get their sense about what they' like to do um either the person the decedent didn't care or didn't think about it okay the person is gone now um for you to act solely on your own authority while legally you probably have the ability to do that and that's you know that's a legal question
15:07 I'm not going to get into the uh particulars of that um but you know as as a fiduciary and and when you're acting as a personal representative whether you're a professional fiduciary like me or you're you know a relative who's been made executive under a will you're acting in a fiduciary capacity and so you know again while you have the authority to make the final decision you would be um well advised to talk to other people especially if there's a spouse and children left behind so their
15:44 wishes should be taken into account um and and hopefully some sort of consensus can be reached about how to handle this obviously some people will be um more um interested in the issue if you will than others and that's fine um but but but but do consult um you know the the family members Etc okay now um another issue is sometimes um other accounts will have links to social media okay and so that
16:19 should be checked out too and see you know to what other accounts are social media um connected so if the person has a website um and their social media is uh is connected to their website or maybe they had some sort of um you know professional like they were part of a large company and then that large company there were social media links um you know anything like that should be checked out um and and and you know what are the consequences to that um with respect to
16:54 these these these other linked uh websites so um you know if if they have um you know some sort of uh professional website for example um you know is is I I can't imagine there would be but you know is there some kind of requirement that that website be you know left up for a certain period of time probably not from a licensing standpoint um but um you you know you may choose to post a notice on the website about the decedent passing um and and so you may decide to leave up
17:32 the person's the decedent social media accounts um for a certain period of time after you know the notification on the website appears so that people can still use those links to go over to the social media Express their condolences um or share some thoughts about the person that sort of thing and in fact you may even encourage people to to to do that on the website and say you know if you'd like to share your remembrance with the about the deed um with the decedent's loved ones um you know please you know use the links to the social
18:07 media below to do so we're going to keep this up and active for the next whatever time period three months six months um and then we're going to Archive um you know all of these uh comments um so that the you know the decedent loved ones can have them okay so just you know keep in mind social media doesn't happen um in a vacuum it may be connected to other things um in the decedent's life and then finally um respect privacy and and this is where um you know you as an individual um giving direction to your
18:43 personal representative while you're doing your estate planning and you as a personal representative um conferring with loved ones make sure that you're considering the Privacy aspects of this okay so some people may want to grieve in private and that's perfectly valid okay so in that case you might um um if you were to say we were talking about posting a notice on a website you might post a notice that's you know informing um you know clients and customers of the person's um
19:18 death and you may say you know the um do the family wishes to grieve in private and so we ask you to refrain from contacting them or something like that okay so again understand those those privacy aspects make sure that we're being as sensitive um to to people in their in their grief Etc as as we can be um as you deal with these various issues okay so we're going to take a look at several um social media sites their
19:55 policies relating to um death of a user um and I'm going to I'm going to I'm I'm taking basically the top five I don't know if we'll get through all five in the time left but um by participants so the biggest social media site is you could guess is Facebook um I don't have the numbers but it's I think a couple of billion users worldwide so that's followed by YouTube Instagram um and then there's some others that aren't used in the US very much and goes on to LinkedIn and then and then X which is of
20:30 course what Twitter used to be so I'm going to take you to um several of these um let's see make sure that I'm oh here here we go okay here we go took me a minute there to find the right one okay so this
21:06 is Facebook okay so you can see here managing a deceased person's account if Facebook is made aware that a person has passed away it's our policy to memorialize the account okay memorialized accounts are in place for friends and family to gather and share memories of person is passed a memorializing account also helps keep it secure by free anyone from logging into it okay so that's what they that's what they do now you'll notice down here request removal of a deceased member's Facebook account okay so if if they call you a legacy contact you're basically um
21:42 you know the the person's um uh um personal representative okay so you see here they they tell you you know what to do they give you um various links to follow so let's I'm I'm going here too here's how you request removal of a deceased family members account okay so it's interesting submit one document to provide proof of authority you'll notice they include a power of attorney if a person is dead a power of attorney dies with them it's interesting that Facebook takes that okay um birth certificate
22:19 last will and testament EST State letter so in a state letter is that's it's what what are called letters testamentary or letters of testamentary or letters of administration okay and then um submit one document to provide proof that the loved one has passed away an obituary or a memorial card wow I mean that is very low um barrier because I can write an obituary for anyone right um in order to you know show that they passed away so um I I you know this is not a very um
22:59 uh vigorous uh policy okay request uh content from a deceased person's Facebook account okay and and and so you can send them a request here Etc okay so that's that's Facebook's policy now let's go and take a look at the next one um which is uh YouTube so where are we here here we go okay all right so submit a request regarding a ceased users account now
23:35 YouTube is owned by Google so when you're dealing with their YouTube account you're really dealing with their whole sort of um you know Google presence if you will um and you can see um if you so account closure requests uh or actually so let's let's look here first um we recognize that many people pass away without leaving clear instructions on how to manage their online accounts we can work with immediate family members and representatives to close the account of a deceased person where appropriate in certain circumstances we may provide
24:11 content from a deceased user's accounts in all those cases our primary responsibility is to keep people's information secure safe and private okay they cannot provide passwords or login details okay so this is why I mentioned at the beginning of the show you want to record that information for your personal representative otherwise they're not going to have access to it and you're going to be subject to whatever uh Google decides okay so here's different things um you can do would you like what would you like to do close the account of a deceased user submit a request for funds
24:48 from a deceased user account so let's say um the person has some Google ads um and there's some funds on accounts still okay you can get that obtain data from a user account okay so let's let's look at close an account okay and they're just going to give you okay name of the deceased person email thece person name full name of of legal representative or relative okay and here's you choose one country zip code so you see you'll fill in this information okay now look at Google first of all they want you to scan upload a scan of your governmen issued
25:23 ID they want to make sure you are who you are they want the decedent's death certificate okay this is really the way to verify of course that somebody has passed away okay upload a scan of any additional documents we may need to better understand your case so if you are a personal representative and you have letters testory test test testamentary um then you you could upload a copy of those letters here okay if you're the trustee under a trust okay so you may not want to upload the entire trust document which may put in a
25:59 comment here um you know do you need a um a copy of the segment of the trust that shows that I'm the successor trustee okay and if you get back yes so then you can upload that um as well so you can see that that Google is being much more thorough than Facebook is okay so let's go to the next one which is okay in Instagram I think Instagram is actually um pretty similar to Facebook because indeed Instagram and Facebook
26:37 are essentially the uh you know the same company okay so you see it looks very very similar okay to the Facebook policy however in this case um removing the account they want a copy of the deceased person's death certificate proof of Authority Under local law that you are the lawful representative of the deceased Andor his or her estate and then they say to request that an account be removed you fill out this form it's probably gonna okay so there you go here it is uh when of the person pass away and here's where
27:12 you provide the death certificate your letters testamentary Etc okay so again um Instagram is more thorough than Facebook is um um but not as I would I wouldn't put them in the same category as as Google okay next is um LinkedIn and let me find where is LinkedIn here we go okay so
27:50 um LinkedIn here's what you need and and you you we're starting to see a pattern here okay so if you wanna um if you have the authority to act on behalf of a deceased member you can request to close the account okay and and and um by the way all of these um um will allow you to memorialize the account um but you know memorializing the account is going to happen um once the person is reported deceased um to close the account they want more formal authorization okay so
28:25 to close the account um excuse me you'll need the member's full name their LinkedIn profile your relationship their email address day they passing linked to obituary so they want it sounds like they want a published obituary okay to request to close an account okay you're going to need one of the following legal documents letters of administration these are issued by a court um when somebody other than an executive appointed in a will is um the person who's authorized to act on behalf of the deeding letters testamentary it's same
29:01 thing only this is when the person is appointed as an executive okay letters of representation or other court order appointing the requestor is the authorized person so LinkedIn being a professional so you know a social media uh site for professionals you can see they're being very very um clear here in what you have to have okay now if you're the trustee successor trustee under a trust so you're not going to have any of these um but you can provide an excerpt from the trust showing that you're the
29:37 trustee hopefully um LinkedIn will um uh will honor that if they won't you may have to go to court um and and get the court to give you a court order to be able to do it okay we're just going to go with with uh one more here and that is um LinkedIn I'm sorry that is uh X and let's see where is X that's here we go okay so
30:13 um now X is the only one that talks about a deceased user and an incapacitated user okay so if if a user is incapacitated they also have a process for removing that person's account see due to medical or other reasons okay we can work with a person authorized to act on them so in that case that would be a situation where a power of attorney would give you authority to act on behalf of the incapacitated person whereas a there's no such thing as an EMP power of attorney to act on behalf of a deceased person because a deceased person cannot
30:51 that the person dying cancels the um the the the cancels the power of attorney okay but otherwise um they they you know theirs are are sort of more General okay and and they're going to go through a process of verifying that that you have authority to act on behalf of the decent in terms of dealing with their social media account okay so that is the subject for today like I said not a financial subject but it could be one um that is
31:27 fraught with emotion and so it should be dealt with in the planning process um and it is something that as a personal representative of of whatever type um you're prepared to deal with so I thank you very much for joining me today tomorrow at 10: am. Pacific time is my show business lessons from the military and we're going to talk about um a the military's reward system you know in the military there's no such thing as getting a raise in pay for um you know particularly um you know
32:02 good good work um the pay scales are all set by law and you generally speaking get a get a a pay increase every year everybody in the military does and you get a pay increase when you advance in rate or rank um but there's no such thing as sort of Merit pay increases so we're going to look at how the military um deals with um um rewarding people for you know um Superior uh performance and then um on Wednesday at
32:37 10:00 a uh Pacific time is my show people making money and we're gonna look at the state of the economy so um previously I was doing this as an as an email newsletter and I thought it would be better to to do a show on this so once a month typically it's going to be the the second Wednesday of the month I'm going to do a show on the state of the economy we're going to go through um a number of different uh factors in terms of um
33:13 inflation unemployment um uh uh salaries and wages Etc and we're going to talk about what these different factors mean how they've changed how they may be impacting use specifically right none of us lives a so-called average life so when they reported earlier this week or maybe was it was last week I guess that inflation was three and a half% from February to March um well that's all good and well but that's a national average that means nothing to any of us
33:48 as individuals and so I'm going to be helping I'm going to be showing you how you can look at these things yourself and figure out you know why do I feel like I'm not as well off or why do I feel well off and so many other people don't things like that so we're going to get into more of the details and you'll see um what's behind all of this these this economic data so and then a week from today will be the next edition of um trust and Estates weekly I have a guest um and he's going to be talking
34:23 about the five myths of a living trust Paul Doty I believe his last name is I know his first name is Paul so I hope you'll tune in for me uh tune in uh to tune in with me um and and um and join me for um my conversation with Paul so thanks again for joining me today have a wonderful rest of the day and signing off as I always do Marie You Are My Belle all the best folks