Digital Succession And Cross Border Inheritance Of Digital Assets
- IJLLR Journal
- 4 days ago
- 1 min read
Arjit Jha, BBA LLB (Hons), Symbiosis Law School, Nagpur
ABSTRACT
The global expansion and advancement of digital technologies and assets have transformed the nature of property, creating a diverse class of digital or virtual assets. They range from financial instruments to platform bound virtual property, and encrypted tokens to personal data archives and intellectual works which are cloud stored becoming an important component of citizens' legitimate property. This intangible decentralized and often jurisdiction- neutral nature exposes significant gaps in traditional inheritance law, which was then originally designed for tangible and territorially grounded property. This paper aims at examining the challenges of digital succession and cross border inheritance, focusing on issues of legal classification, transmissibility, evidentiary verification and conflicts of different nations in regards with their respective laws. The main problems facing digital assets inheritance are the unclear legal status of digital heritage, the difficulties in applying traditional inheritance models, and the conflicts of rights inherent in digital property itself resulting in contractual restrictions especially in platform terms and services and divergent international regulations impede heirs' access to digital estates. Drawing from Indian, American, European and Chinese approaches, the paper studies emerging legislative trends and judicial responses to digital inheritance. The study argues for a harmonized legal framework which is grounded in principles of party autonomy and properly structured division of rights, alongside clear responsibilities for world-wide digital platform.
Keywords: Digital Succession, Digital Assets, Cross-Border Inheritance, Virtual Property Cryptocurrencies and NFTs, Comparative Succession Law, Digital Estate Planning
