New Hampshire Digital Assets Planning

New Hampshire answers the digital-accounts question in RSA 554-A, the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, enacted by 2019, 140:1 and effective June 25, 2019. The chapter ranks a provider's online tool above your will, splits every account into content and catalogue, and gives a custodian 60 days to answer a complete request. What your fiduciary can reach is decided by what you set up while you are alive.

This guide walks the chapter section by section: where it lives, the word New Hampshire uses for the fiduciary, the priority ladder in RSA 554-A:4, what an administrator mails a custodian, how the grant runs through a New Hampshire power of attorney, and what a custodian may do with the request once it lands. Read it alongside the New Hampshire executor duties guide and the rest of the document set in New Hampshire estate planning basics. Confirm anything that touches your own accounts with a licensed New Hampshire attorney.

Where the Chapter Lives, and Why Writers Miss It

RSA 554-A sits inside Title LVI, Probate Courts and Decedents' Estates, next door to RSA 554 on inventory, accounts and dealing with assets. It is not filed under a technology or consumer chapter, which is where most searches go first. The chapter runs from RSA 554-A:1, the short title, through RSA 554-A:19, and every one of those 19 sections prints the same Source line: 2019, 140:1, eff. June 25, 2019.

RSA 554-A:3 sets the reach, and it looks backward as well as forward. The chapter applies to a fiduciary acting under a will or power of attorney executed before, on or after the effective date, to a personal representative acting for a decedent who died before, on or after that date, to a conservatorship or guardianship proceeding commenced at any point, and to a trustee under a trust created at any point. A 2004 will still gets the benefit of the 2019 statute. The chapter binds a custodian when the user resides in New Hampshire or resided here at the time of death.

Two carve-outs sit at the end of the same section. An employer's digital asset used by an employee in the ordinary course of the employer's business is outside the chapter, so a work inbox is the employer's question and not the estate's. A digital asset that includes protected health information as defined in 45 C.F.R. section 160.103 stays outside unless the requirements to access that information under other federal and state law are satisfied, which routes a patient portal through HIPAA rather than through RSA 554-A.

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The Chapter Says Personal Representative. The Rest of New Hampshire Says Administrator.

New Hampshire never adopted the Uniform Probate Code. RSA 553:1, titled Administrator Defined, states that the word administrator may include every person to whom the administration of an estate or the execution of a will may be granted. That is the word the probate chapters and the NHJB court forms use.

RSA 554-A is one of the few New Hampshire chapters written in the other vocabulary, because it copies uniform text. RSA 554-A:2(19) defines personal representative to mean an executor, administrator, special administrator, or person that performs substantially the same function under other law of this state. So the paper the Circuit Court, Probate Division hands a New Hampshire administrator is exactly the paper RSA 554-A:7 and RSA 554-A:8 ask for, whatever a custodian's web form calls it. The same definitions section also fixes the forum: RSA 554-A:2(7) says court means the circuit court having jurisdiction over the protected person, which matches the unified Circuit Court that took over the county probate courts.

The Priority Ladder in RSA 554-A:4

RSA 554-A:4 is the section that decides most disputes before they start. Read it as three rungs.

Rung	What controls	New Hampshire text
1	The custodian's online tool	RSA 554-A:4(a). A direction given through an online tool overrides a contrary direction in a will, trust or power of attorney, so long as the tool lets the user modify or delete the direction at all times
2	Your will, trust, power of attorney or other record	RSA 554-A:4(b). Applies when the user gave no online-tool direction or the custodian offers no tool
3	The terms-of-service agreement	The default when the user said nothing anywhere

Subsection (c) is the sentence that gives planning its teeth. A user direction under (a) or (b) overrides a contrary provision in a terms-of-service agreement that does not require the user to act affirmatively and distinctly from the user's assent to the terms of service. Clicking I agree once, years ago, does not outrank a direction you wrote later.

RSA 554-A:2(17) defines an online tool as an electronic service the custodian provides, in an agreement distinct from the terms of service, that lets the user give directions for disclosure or nondisclosure to a third person. Google Inactive Account Manager, Facebook Legacy Contact and Apple Digital Legacy are the settings most New Hampshire families already have available. Ten minutes in those menus outranks a paragraph a lawyer drafts.

One trap follows from rung one. Because the tool wins, an old legacy-contact setting can quietly defeat a newer will. Review those settings whenever you update documents, and treat them as part of the estate plan rather than as account housekeeping.

What RSA 554-A Counts as a Digital Asset

RSA 554-A:2(10) defines a digital asset as an electronic record in which an individual has a right or interest, then narrows it with a sentence worth reading twice: the term shall not include an underlying asset or liability unless the asset or liability is itself an electronic record.

That line draws the boundary an estate cares about. Online access to a checking account is a digital asset. The money in the account is not, and it moves through the estate or by beneficiary designation the ordinary way. The same split applies to a brokerage login and the securities behind it. RSA 554-A opens doors; it does not retitle property.

Inside the boundary, the definition is wide:

Email, messaging history and cloud storage
Social accounts, photo libraries and video channels
Online banking, bill pay and payment apps
Exchange accounts, hosted wallets and tokens
Domain names, seller accounts and advertising accounts
Loyalty balances, gaming accounts and password vaults

Content and Catalogue Are Two Different Requests

Every request under this chapter is one of two things, and the two carry different burdens.

RSA 554-A:2(4) defines the catalogue of electronic communications as information identifying each person a user communicated with, the time and date of the communication and the electronic address of that person. Who, when, and at what address. No words.

RSA 554-A:2(6) defines the content of an electronic communication as information concerning the substance or meaning of a communication that was sent or received by a user, is in electronic storage by a custodian providing an electronic communication service to the public or carried by a remote computing service to the public, and is not readily accessible to the public. All three parts have to be true, which is why a public social post generally falls outside content while a private message falls inside it.

Email is where the distinction hurts. The inbox holds the password-reset links for everything else, and the reset link lives in the message body. A catalogue tells an administrator that the bank wrote on March 3. Only content shows what the bank said.

What a New Hampshire Administrator Sends a Custodian

The two deceased-user sections take the same shape and ask for different proof.

Request	Section	What the custodian gets
Catalogue and other digital assets	RSA 554-A:8	Written request, certified copy of the death certificate, certified copy of the letter of appointment or court order
Content of electronic communications	RSA 554-A:7	Everything above, plus proof the user consented, through an online tool or a copy of the will, trust, power of attorney or other record

RSA 554-A:8 then lets the custodian ask for more if it wants: an account identifier, evidence linking the account to the user, an affidavit stating that disclosure is reasonably necessary for administration of the estate, or a court finding on either point. RSA 554-A:7 carries a longer optional list, including a court finding that disclosure would not violate 18 U.S.C. section 2701 et seq. or 47 U.S.C. section 222.

Notice the word certified in both sections. A scan of the appointment does not satisfy the text. Order several certified copies of the death certificate and several certified copies of the appointment while the estate is opening, because each custodian keeps its own set and a second round of court requests costs weeks. The New Hampshire executor duties guide covers the rest of the opening paperwork that runs on the same schedule.

RSA 554-A:8 also carries a quiet default that favors the estate. Unless the user prohibited disclosure or the court directs otherwise, the custodian shall disclose the catalogue and the non-content assets. Silence does not block that request. Silence blocks the content request.

The Agent's Route Runs Through RSA 564-E

An agent under a durable power of attorney has a parallel pair of sections, and both turn on the wording of the document.

RSA 554-A:9 releases the content of the principal's electronic communications only to the extent a power of attorney expressly grants the agent authority over that content. RSA 554-A:10 releases the catalogue and the other digital assets where the power of attorney gives the agent specific authority over digital assets or general authority to act. Both sections want a written request, the power of attorney itself, and a certification by the agent under penalty of perjury that the power of attorney is in effect.

New Hampshire's own form meets one half of that and not the other. The statutory form at RSA 564-E:301 prints a list of subjects under its grant of general authority, and the final initial line reads Digital Assets as defined in RSA 554-A:2(10). Initialing that line lines up with the RSA 554-A:10 request. It points at the definition of a digital asset, while RSA 554-A:9 asks for an express grant over the content of electronic communications, a separately defined term at RSA 554-A:2(6). A document that means to cover email should name the content of electronic communications in its own sentence rather than rely on the checkbox alone.

Two New Hampshire execution rules decide whether any of that works.

RSA 564-E:105(a)(1) requires the principal to sign the general power of attorney other than by electronic signature, and to acknowledge the signature before a notary public or other officer authorized to take acknowledgments. A disclosure statement in the form the section prints has to be affixed as well.
RSA 564-E:113(a) says the person named as agent has no authority to act unless, at any time before exercising the power, that person has signed, other than by electronic signature, and affixed to the general power of attorney the acknowledgment the section prints. The signature does not have to happen on the day the principal signs. It has to happen before the agent uses the document.

Read together, a custodian request under RSA 554-A:9 rests on a power of attorney that empowers nobody until the agent's acknowledgment is signed in ink and attached. Get that page executed and filed with the original, not left as a to-do.

Trustees Have Their Own Three Sections

RSA 554-A:11 handles the simple case. A trustee that is an original user of the account gets every digital asset in the account held in trust, including the catalogue and the content, unless a court or the trust says otherwise.

RSA 554-A:12 covers a successor trustee asking for content. That trustee sends a written request, a certified copy of the trust instrument or a certification of trust under RSA 564-B:10-1013 that includes consent to disclosure of the content of electronic communications, and a certification under penalty of perjury that the trust exists and the trustee is currently acting. RSA 554-A:13 asks for the same package without the consent language for the catalogue and the non-content assets.

The phrase that includes consent to disclosure is the one to carry into drafting. A certification of trust prepared for a bank closing will not usually contain it, and a successor trustee who hands that document to a custodian has proved the trust and not the consent.

Guardians of the Estate and Conservators

RSA 554-A:14 is the incapacity path when no usable power of attorney exists. After an opportunity for a hearing under RSA 464-A, the court may grant a conservator, a guardian of the estate, or another person access to the digital assets of a protected person. The custodian then discloses the catalogue and the digital assets other than content on a written request plus a certified copy of the court order giving that authority.

Content is absent from that list, which is the whole argument for planning ahead. Subsection (c) adds a useful power in the other direction: a conservator or guardian of the estate with general authority over the protected person's assets may ask a custodian to suspend or terminate an account for good cause, again on a certified copy of the order.

What the Custodian Chooses, and the 60-Day Clock

RSA 554-A:6 leaves the method to the company. At its sole discretion the custodian may grant full access to the account, grant partial access sufficient to perform the tasks the fiduciary is charged with, or provide a copy in a record of any digital asset the user could have accessed on the date the request arrived. It may charge a reasonable administrative fee, it need not disclose an asset the user already deleted, and it need not hand-sort a partial request that would impose an undue burden. When the burden is real, either side may ask the court for an order covering a date-limited subset, everything, nothing, or an in camera review.

RSA 554-A:16 sets the deadline. A custodian shall comply not later than 60 days after receipt of the information required under RSA 554-A:7 through RSA 554-A:15, and a fiduciary or designated recipient who gets no answer may apply to the court for an order directing compliance. That order has to contain a finding that compliance does not violate 18 U.S.C. section 2702. The custodian may tell the user a request was made, and it earns immunity for anything done in good faith under the chapter.

Subsection (d) is the trap almost nobody reads. A custodian may deny the request if it is aware of any lawful access to the account following receipt of the fiduciary's request. Somebody in the family who keeps logging in with the old password after the paperwork went out can hand the company a reason to say no. Send the request, then leave the account alone.

Duties Travel With the Assets

RSA 554-A:15 settles what a fiduciary owes and what a fiduciary may do.

The duties of care, loyalty and confidentiality that apply to tangible property apply to digital property in the same terms. Authority stays subject to the terms of service except as RSA 554-A:5 provides, stays subject to copyright and other law, is limited by the scope of the fiduciary's duties, and may not be used to impersonate the user.

Two subsections open doors nothing else opens. A fiduciary has the right to access any digital asset in which the decedent, protected person, principal or settlor had a right or interest that is not held by a custodian or subject to a terms-of-service agreement. A fiduciary with authority over the tangible personal property has the right to access that property and any digital asset stored in it. Both make the fiduciary an authorized user for the purpose of computer fraud and unauthorized access laws, including RSA 638:17, which is what keeps a lawful search of the decedent's laptop from looking like a crime.

Subsection (g) covers closing an account. The termination request goes in writing with a certified copy of the death certificate when the user has died, plus a certified copy of the letter of appointment, court order, power of attorney or trust giving the fiduciary authority over the account.

Cryptocurrency and Anything No Custodian Holds

The right to reach assets no custodian holds is the reason self-custody crypto belongs in its own plan. There is no help desk behind a hardware wallet and no company to send a certified copy to. RSA 554-A gives your fiduciary the legal right of access and cannot supply the seed phrase.

Write down what you hold: each exchange account, each wallet, the wallet type, and roughly what it is worth.
Keep seed phrases and private keys offline, in a fireproof safe or a safe deposit box, never in an email draft or a photo roll.
Say in your will or trust that the fiduciary may manage and sell digital currency, and leave a separate letter of instruction pointing at the storage location.
Expect a slow process at hosted exchanges. Coinbase and Kraken each run a deceased-account procedure that asks for the death certificate, the New Hampshire appointment and identification.

Property that never reaches a fiduciary is property the estate cannot distribute. That is the same reasoning behind the non-probate transfers covered in how to avoid probate in New Hampshire.

Set It Up Before Anyone Needs It

Open the online tool settings on the accounts that matter, starting with the email address that receives password resets. A direction there sits on rung one of RSA 554-A:4.
Write digital authority into your New Hampshire will, and name the content of electronic communications on purpose so RSA 554-A:7 is satisfied. Keep passwords out of the will itself, since a filed will is a public record.
Update the power of attorney to grant authority over digital assets and over the content of electronic communications, then have the agent sign and affix the RSA 564-E:113 acknowledgment.
If you use a trust, give the trustee the same two grants and put consent to content disclosure into any certification of trust the successor will hand a custodian.
Build an inventory: platform, username, account type, rough value, and where the credentials live. Store the credentials somewhere secure and reference the location rather than the contents.
Tell the fiduciary the inventory exists and how to open it, then review the whole set once a year.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does New Hampshire have a digital assets law?

Yes. RSA 554-A is the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act, and every section of it carries the Source line 2019, 140:1, eff. June 25, 2019. It sits in Title LVI, Probate Courts and Decedents' Estates, beside RSA 554, which is why writers looking for it under a technology chapter come up empty.

Can a New Hampshire executor read the decedent's email?

Only with consent or a court order. RSA 554-A:7 releases the content of electronic communications to the personal representative when the deceased user consented through an online tool or in a will, trust, power of attorney or other record, or when a court directs disclosure. Without one of those, RSA 554-A:8 still opens the catalogue of who wrote to whom and when, and it does not open the messages.

What does a New Hampshire administrator send a custodian?

RSA 554-A:8 asks for a written request, a certified copy of the death certificate and a certified copy of the letter of appointment or court order. The word certified matters. A photocopy of the appointment does not meet the section, so ask the Circuit Court, Probate Division for spare certified copies when the estate opens.

Does the New Hampshire statutory power of attorney cover digital assets?

The statutory form in RSA 564-E:301 carries an initial line reading Digital Assets as defined in RSA 554-A:2(10) under its grant of general authority. That line tracks the definition of a digital asset. RSA 554-A:9 asks separately for a power of attorney that expressly grants the agent authority over the content of electronic communications, so write that sentence into the document as well.

How long does a custodian have to answer in New Hampshire?

Sixty days. RSA 554-A:16 says a custodian shall comply not later than 60 days after receipt of the information required under RSA 554-A:7 through 554-A:15, and a fiduciary who is ignored may apply to the court for an order directing compliance. The same section lets a custodian deny the request if it knows of any lawful access to the account after the request arrived.

Is knowing the password enough for a New Hampshire fiduciary?

No. RSA 554-A:15 says fiduciary authority over a digital asset may not be used to impersonate the user, and it makes the fiduciary an authorized user for the purpose of computer fraud and unauthorized access laws including RSA 638:17 only while acting within the scope of the fiduciary duties. Logging in as the decedent is a different act from requesting disclosure.

What happens to cryptocurrency in a private wallet?

RSA 554-A:15 gives a fiduciary the right to access any digital asset in which the decedent had a right or interest that is not held by a custodian or subject to a terms-of-service agreement. That covers a self-custody wallet, and it also means there is no company to petition. Without the seed phrase or private keys, the coins stay unreachable.

Sources:

Title: RSA 554-A:1 Short Title. Publisher: New Hampshire General Court. Publication Date: 2019, 140:1, eff. June 25, 2019. URL: https://gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/LVI/554-A/554-A-1.htm
Title: RSA 554-A:2 Definitions. Publisher: New Hampshire General Court. Publication Date: 2019, 140:1, eff. June 25, 2019. URL: https://gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/LVI/554-A/554-A-2.htm
Title: RSA 554-A:3 Applicability. Publisher: New Hampshire General Court. Publication Date: 2019, 140:1, eff. June 25, 2019. URL: https://gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/LVI/554-A/554-A-3.htm
Title: RSA 554-A:4 User Direction for Disclosure of Digital Assets. Publisher: New Hampshire General Court. Publication Date: 2019, 140:1, eff. June 25, 2019. URL: https://gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/LVI/554-A/554-A-4.htm
Title: RSA 554-A:6 Procedure for Disclosing Digital Assets. Publisher: New Hampshire General Court. Publication Date: 2019, 140:1, eff. June 25, 2019. URL: https://gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/LVI/554-A/554-A-6.htm
Title: RSA 554-A:7 Disclosure of Content of Electronic Communications of Deceased User. Publisher: New Hampshire General Court. Publication Date: 2019, 140:1, eff. June 25, 2019. URL: https://gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/LVI/554-A/554-A-7.htm
Title: RSA 554-A:8 Disclosure of Other Digital Assets of Deceased User. Publisher: New Hampshire General Court. Publication Date: 2019, 140:1, eff. June 25, 2019. URL: https://gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/LVI/554-A/554-A-8.htm
Title: RSA 554-A:9 Disclosure of Content of Electronic Communications of Principal. Publisher: New Hampshire General Court. Publication Date: 2019, 140:1, eff. June 25, 2019. URL: https://gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/LVI/554-A/554-A-9.htm
Title: RSA 554-A:14 Disclosure of Digital Assets to Conservator, Guardian of the Estate, or Other Duly Authorized Person of Protected Person. Publisher: New Hampshire General Court. Publication Date: 2019, 140:1, eff. June 25, 2019. URL: https://gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/LVI/554-A/554-A-14.htm
Title: RSA 554-A:15 Fiduciary Duty and Authority. Publisher: New Hampshire General Court. Publication Date: 2019, 140:1, eff. June 25, 2019. URL: https://gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/LVI/554-A/554-A-15.htm
Title: RSA 554-A:16 Custodian Compliance and Immunity. Publisher: New Hampshire General Court. Publication Date: 2019, 140:1, eff. June 25, 2019. URL: https://gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/LVI/554-A/554-A-16.htm
Title: RSA 564-E:105 Execution of Power of Attorney. Publisher: New Hampshire General Court. Publication Date: 2017, 178:1, eff. Jan. 1, 2018. URL: https://gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/LVI/564-E/564-E-105.htm
Title: RSA 564-E:113 Agent's Authority and Agent's Acceptance or Declination. Publisher: New Hampshire General Court. Publication Date: 2017, 178:1, eff. Jan. 1, 2018. 2021, 206:2, Pt. VI, Sec. 4, eff. July 1, 2021. URL: https://gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/LVI/564-E/564-E-113.htm
Title: RSA 564-E:301 Statutory Form Power of Attorney. Publisher: New Hampshire General Court. Publication Date: 2017, 178:1, eff. Jan. 1, 2018. 2021, 206:2, Pt. VI, Sec. 7, eff. July 1, 2021. URL: https://gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/LVI/564-E/564-E-301.htm
Title: RSA 553:1 Administrator Defined. Publisher: New Hampshire General Court. Publication Date: Not listed. URL: https://gc.nh.gov/rsa/html/LVI/553/553-1.htm

It is not legal advice.