What Happens to Online Accounts After Death in BC: A Digital Estate Guide for Executors and Families

When a loved one in British Columbia passes away, their email, social media profiles, and online subscriptions do not simply disappear. Executors and families in Greater Victoria regularly discover that banking, photos, streaming accounts, and years of correspondence are still live, and that getting access usually takes paperwork, patience, and a clear plan. This guide explains what happens to online accounts after death, how platforms like Facebook and Google handle memorials and data, and the practical steps executors and families can take, in plain language.

A note before we begin: digital accounts are governed by each provider's own terms of service, and estate law in BC does not give an executor automatic access to them. Treat this article as a starting point, and confirm details with the platform and a lawyer or notary where money, contracts, or disputes are involved.

Why online accounts matter to an estate

An online footprint touches nearly every part of an estate. Email inboxes hold utility statements, tax documents, and two-factor verification codes. Social media profiles are part of a person's story and often the place where family and friends gather to remember them. Online banking, investment portals, and payment apps can hold money that belongs in the estate. And subscriptions, from streaming services to cloud storage, can quietly keep billing a credit card for months after someone dies.

The challenge is that these accounts do not come with keys the way a safety deposit box does. In BC, an executor is legally responsible for gathering and protecting estate assets, but the platforms themselves decide what an executor can access, based on their rules and the documents you can provide. Knowing this early makes the whole process smoother.

The big surprise: no one has automatic access

Even with a grant of probate or letters of administration in hand, an executor in BC cannot simply log in to a deceased person's accounts. Each platform grants access under its own process, and most require proof of death plus proof of your authority. Knowing a password is helpful, but it does not create a legal right to use an account, and using it the wrong way can create complications, especially where money is involved.

What this means in practice: the easier the deceased person made it to identify their accounts, the easier the executor's job. A written inventory of accounts, saved with a will or power of attorney papers, is one of the most valuable gifts a parent or grandparent can leave behind.

Facebook: memorialize, manage, or remove

Facebook offers two main paths after someone dies. A profile can be memorialized, which keeps the page visible with "Remembering" in the name so friends can share memories, or it can be removed entirely by family.

• A legacy contact is someone the account holder picked ahead of time to manage a memorialized profile: pin a post, respond to friend requests, update the profile picture, and request the download of an archive if given permission. A legacy contact can never log in as the person.
• Without a legacy contact, family can still request memorialization or removal by submitting proof of death, such as a death certificate or an obituary link, through Meta's special request form.
• If the person chose deletion in their account settings, Facebook will remove the account after it is notified.

For families, the gentlest path is often memorialization, which leaves a place to gather and remember and can be removed later if the family prefers. Whatever the choice, proof of death is required, so have the death certificate ready.

Google and Gmail: inactive account manager and bereavement requests

Google accounts hold email, photos, calendars, and often two-factor authentication for dozens of other services, so they are frequently a priority for executors. Google offers two routes.

The Inactive Account Manager is a feature the account holder can set up in advance. It lets them choose what happens after a set period of inactivity, whether that means notifying trusted contacts, sharing selected data with them, or deleting the account. It is a powerful planning tool and takes only minutes to set up.

If it was never set up, an executor or family member can use Google's bereavement process to request account closure or data after providing the death certificate and proof of authority. Be aware that simply having the password does not give anyone the legal or ethical green light to use the account, and Google's process exists precisely so requests go through the right channel.

Money accounts: the ones to handle first

Online banking, investment accounts, payment apps, and anything holding funds are estate matters, not just convenience matters. These accounts should be flagged early in the executor's work, and the institution will typically want to see the death certificate and evidence of the executor's authority before releasing or closing anything.

Two practical cautions: do not transfer or spend money from any account before confirming the estate can lawfully do so, and keep a clear record of every account you contact, along with what each institution asked for. This documentation saves hours when you deal with the next institution, and it protects the executor if questions come up later.

A step-by-step plan for the executor

• Build the list. Work through the person's devices, browser saved passwords, password manager if there is one, billing statements, and email inbox for subscription confirmations and account notifications.
• Gather your documents. Order the death certificate early and keep a copy of the will and any grant of probate or letters of administration ready to share.
• Prioritize. Handle banks, payment apps, and anything holding money first. Then move to subscriptions that may still be charging, then email and social media.
• Contact each provider through its official process. Look for the platform's own bereavement, memorialization, or deceased user support page rather than sending an email to an address you cannot verify.
• Decide what to preserve. Before deleting anything, download archives of photos, messages, and documents the family may want. Once an account is deleted, the content is usually gone for good.
• Close what should be closed. Cancel subscriptions, close accounts that no longer need to exist, and note in your executor records what was done and when.

What families can do now to make it easier

The single most helpful thing a person can do is create a simple digital estate inventory while they are healthy and share it with someone they trust. It does not need to list every password in the open; a sealed envelope or a password manager with instructions stored alongside a will works well.

• Set up a Facebook legacy contact and decide whether you want memorialization or deletion.
• Set up Google's Inactive Account Manager and choose who should receive data, or whether the account should be deleted.
• Keep a list of accounts, including ones without obvious value, alongside your estate documents.
• Tell your executor or a family member where the list lives and how to access it.

Small actions like these take an afternoon now and can save a grieving family weeks of frustrating work later. If you are helping a parent get organized before a housing transition, adding a digital inventory to the paperwork box is a natural fit. Our guide to organizing documents before a move covers the wider picture.

This article is for general information only and is not legal or financial advice. Confirm current platform policies and estate rules with the provider, a lawyer, or a notary.