Your Digital Life Doesn't Live in One Country. Does Your Plan?

The Accident That Changed Everything

When Pieter's wife called him from the hospital, she had one task: pay the mortgage. It should have taken five minutes.

It took three weeks.

Pieter had been meticulous about their finances. He managed the mortgage via a German bank, kept savings in a Dutch account, ran his freelance invoicing through a UK-based platform, and held a modest crypto portfolio on a Swiss exchange. He knew exactly where everything was.

His wife did not.

By the time she found the accounts — sifting through browser bookmarks, old emails, and two laptops — the mortgage payment was late, a late fee had been charged, and she'd spent hours on hold with support teams in four different countries, in three different languages.

Pieter survived. But the experience scared them both enough to do something about it. The question was: where do you even start?

The Modern Expat's Digital Footprint

If you've lived and worked across Europe, your digital assets are scattered like seeds in the wind.

Consider what the average expat might have:

• Banking: A primary account in your country of residence, perhaps another at home, maybe a Wise or Revolut account that lives in the cloud
• Investments: A brokerage through a Dutch or German platform, ISAs or PEAs depending on your history
• Cryptocurrency: An exchange registered in Switzerland, Malta, or Estonia; a hardware wallet somewhere in a drawer
• Business accounts: Stripe or Mollie for payments, a Shopify store, a domain registered through an Irish registrar
• Email and documents: Gmail, Outlook, or iCloud — all hosted by US companies, subject to US laws regardless of where you live
• Subscriptions and licenses: Adobe, Spotify, Microsoft 365, cloud storage across multiple providers
• Social media: LinkedIn, Instagram, Facebook — platforms that span dozens of jurisdictions

Each one of these sits under a different legal framework. Each one has different access rules, different inheritance policies, and different processes for family members trying to take over after a death or incapacitation.

This is your digital life. And if you haven't mapped it, no one else knows it exists.

Why Jurisdiction Matters More Than You Think

You might assume that European Union law provides a unified safety net. The EU Succession Regulation (EU 650/2012) does help with physical assets — it generally means the law of your country of habitual residence governs your estate. But digital assets exist in a grey zone.

The US tech giant problem: Your Google account, Apple ID, and Microsoft account are governed by US law — specifically the Stored Communications Act. Even if you're a German resident with a German will, your family may need a US court order to access your email. The EU's digital inheritance frameworks don't override American server policies.

Switzerland and crypto: Swiss exchanges like Swissquote and Crypto Finance AG are regulated by FINMA and have their own account access policies upon death. If your next of kin doesn't know the exchange exists, the assets may sit frozen for years.

UK platforms post-Brexit: British platforms like Monzo, Freetrade, or Hargreaves Lansdown now operate under UK FCA rules, not EU frameworks. If you have accounts there from a previous stint in London, they're in a different regulatory universe.

Ireland as a tech hub: Many US companies — Apple, Google, Meta — have their European headquarters in Ireland. This means their EU users often fall under Irish data protection rules, which adds another layer when families try to request data posthumously.

Without a map, your family won't know which laws apply where, which accounts exist, or even which countries' authorities to contact.

The Digital Asset Map: What It Should Include

A cross-border digital asset map isn't just a spreadsheet of passwords. It's a structured document that gives your family (or executor) everything they need to locate, access, and decide what to do with each asset.

For each asset, you need:

1. What it is Name of the platform, type of asset (bank account, crypto, domain, email, investment), and its approximate value or importance.

2. Where it legally lives Country of registration, applicable law, and which regulatory body governs it. A Swiss crypto exchange and a German bank account have entirely different access processes.

3. How to prove you own it Account numbers, reference numbers, or identifiers that allow your family to begin the access process. Not necessarily the password — but enough to start.

4. Who to contact Customer service addresses, legal departments, or specific processes for estate inquiries. Many platforms have a dedicated process; knowing it in advance saves months.

5. What you want done with it Close it, transfer it, memorialize it, or liquidate it. Your family will be grieving. Don't leave them to guess.

6. Any special access requirements Two-factor authentication devices, hardware wallets, security keys, or identity verification requirements that could block access.

The Languages Problem

This is the part that doesn't get enough attention.

If you're an expat in Germany and you pass away, your Dutch spouse may need to correspond with:

• A German bank (in German)
• A Swiss crypto exchange (in German or French)
• Google (in English, under Irish/US law)
• A Dutch investment platform (in Dutch)

Most family members aren't equipped for this. And most estate lawyers aren't either — the cross-border digital estate is still a niche specialisation.

Your digital asset map should include notes on the language of correspondence, whether the platform offers services in multiple languages, and any translation requirements for legal documents.

The Difference Between Knowing and Having Access

Here's the critical distinction that most planning guides miss: knowing an asset exists is not the same as being able to access it.

You can tell your spouse "I have a Kraken account" — but if they don't have your email address, phone number, or 2FA code, they're locked out. The account might as well not exist.

Your digital asset map needs to either include access credentials, or point to where those credentials are securely stored. This is exactly the problem that digital vaults are designed to solve — not just storing the list of what you have, but providing a secure, structured way to ensure your family can actually reach it.

Start Today: The First Three Steps

You don't need to have everything figured out to begin.

Step 1: Inventory what you have. Spend 30 minutes writing down every digital account that has financial value or sentimental importance. Don't filter — include everything.

Step 2: Note the country of registration. For each account, identify where the company is based and which country's laws are most likely to govern access.

Step 3: Assign each account to a person. Who should handle this if you can't? Your partner, an adult child, a trusted friend? Different accounts may need different people depending on their technical or legal competence.

These three steps won't solve everything. But they'll give your family a fighting chance.

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Pieter and his wife spent one Sunday afternoon building their digital asset map together. They found accounts neither of them had thought about in years. They discovered they had no shared access to three of their most important financial accounts. And they realized that their planning had assumed a world where digital assets stayed in one country.

They fixed it. You can too.

Create your LegacyShield account today and start building a secure, cross-border digital legacy plan — before the moment you need one.