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Helen Forster, a director at HTF Legal Limited, discusses with the Genealogy Guy the importance of digital legacy planning. She highlighted that only 27% of people know what will happen to their digital assets upon death, and only 9% have a clear plan. Digital assets include monetary investments and sentimental items like photos. She emphasized the need for digital executors to manage these assets, noting that 1 in 4 estates are contested. Forster also discussed the challenges of accessing digital assets post-death, such as needing passwords or thumbprints. She advised creating digital backups and shared folders to ensure family access to important data.
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Genealogy Guy 0:17
Recently, I was researching into digital legacy and found that, according to the digital legacy Association, they believe that only once someone understands the value of their own digital legacy will they be motivated to make suitable plans for it. Now, I was speaking to Dominic Hendry last month, and so started talking about this, and he said, I know exactly the person to speak to. So joining us on this episode is Helen Forster, who's a director at HTF legal limited, described as a popular legal speaker on wills and probate matters. So welcome along to the show.
Helen Forster 0:54
Thank you very much, and thank you for having me.
Genealogy Guy 0:57
Could you put into basic terms? How would you explain in easy terms what a digital legacy is, or, as I know you call them, digital assets?
Speaker 1 1:06
it's a very big thing now, actually, Mell, so we've had a lot of statistics from the Law Society, and just to put it into some perspective for you, we look at, of course, when someone makes a will, we have to discuss things like inheritance tax. And so a lot of people are thinking that digital assets are monetary assets, and there might be, there might be things like, I don't know, stocks and shares, investments you have on online bank accounts, and Bitcoin, you know, cryptocurrency. But also digital assets might be sentimental as well. So things like just simple things like on a mobile phone, you take all your photos, that's actually a digital asset. And so people aren't thinking about how we're going to access those and how we're going to deal with them on death. So there's sort of two fold really. There's the monetary side of things. Yes, of course there is. But also there's this sentimental thing, which becomes much more important, of course, when you you have a sudden death of a loved one, for example, and you can't get into these different laptops or phones and things because of the security on there. The Law Society actually has some statistics on this. And I've said that when practitioners have carried out these checklists, when clients come to see them, off the ordinary man in the street, when they when they spoke to them, only 27% of them said, Oh, yes, I know what's going to happen to my digital assets when I when I die, only 9% of those actually turn around said, Yes, categorically, this is the plan I have. The others went, Oh, I somewhat understand what I'm doing with them, because it was mentioned to me. So it's a really big problem now, because how do we make sure that loved ones get hold of these assets if we don't have paperwork and things in the house nowadays to try and identify that they're even in existence? So it's a real, real problem for us. We try varying different ways of doing it with people, because some people are, of course, tech savvy. Other people might not be tech savvy. I'm just kind of, I think, as a little bit of a dinosaur in my in my line of work now, because I still use things like pen and paper, I'm not hugely into putting everything on a phone, for example, and apps, there's an app for everything, but the really common one that people do do is they have like, like a safety deposit box app on their phone, and you can log all your kind of logins to your bank for Santander, whatever it might be. And you can nominate people nowadays as well to actually access accounts like social media, iTunes, Facebook, these all have things in their settings to nominate somebody in the event of your death who's allowed to access them. And so a lot of people are starting to do this. The thing that I would throw into that is that's all well and good if I have an app on my phone that has all my login details and where things are, well, okay, but if I die, how does someone access that? Who knows my pin to get into my phone or has my thumbprint? So we're going to make sure that we have a way of accessing that. So I personally still go a bit old school, and I'll write it into a notebook, and I'll keep the notebook because pen and paper is easier to access, but you've got to make sure it's somewhere safe in your home, for obvious reasons. So it's a massive thing now that people don't think about, but it's seeing that bigger picture of assets aren't just monetary assets. Assets aren't anything you have sentimental as well.
Genealogy Guy 4:20
Picking up on that, normally, with a will, you you select an executor, someone to carry out your wishes. The executor might not be tech savvy at all. So you can have more than one executor and specify what what they can and cannot do
Helen Forster 4:34
Absolutely. So it's quite common nowadays to see an appointment of an executor and a digital executor for this reason, but you've got to be very careful about how you would set that out in the will. As you rightly say, an executors job is to collect in the assets of monetary value and distribute them in accordance with the terms of the estate. So that is their job. So their job is to perhaps carry out things like assets. Searches. I know that's what Dom, Dominic Hendry and his firm sort of do. They do a lot of these asset searches to check things like unclaimed asset registers. You know, if anything's been sat there and not claimed again, statistic wise, if you don't have an asset that is located, it would drop onto this register. And if it remains unclaimed, it goes back to the Treasury as what's called Bona vacantia, and there's a treasury solicitor, and the Treasury solicitor has actually said only 95% of what they deal with actually has a beneficiary. Somewhere, only 5% of it is truly an unclaimed asset, because there is no one for it, which is quite scary. So there's a lot of these that drop on there. And so asset searches are a really important thing that can be carried out to make sure that we don't lose anything for monetary value, that's an executors job. Now, a digital executor arguably could deal with my Hargreaves Lansdown account, if it's an online account or my Santander Bank account, and it causes conflict between an executor and a digital executor. And so it's really important to make sure that in a will a digital executors authority is identified if you're going to have different people. So for example, if I was appointing you as my executor, and I was quite happy for you to deal with my digital assets. It's not a big deal. You're my executor and my digital executor. But if I wanted Joe Bloggs to be my digital executive, because, as you rightly say, they're tech savvy, they're happy to deal with sorting out photos or whatever it might be, well, I would appoint you as my executor and Joe Bloggs as my digital executor purely for the purposes of and list down what their authority is. And that just makes it really clear whose job is what. A lot of companies are saying now that you've got to have the appointment of a digital executor, otherwise they won't give you information. And I find that quite interesting. I think when it comes to monetary assets, I'd argue, I don't think that's necessary, because an executors job is to call in anything of monetary value, but when it's non monetary, things like sentimental value, well, we could be snookered if we don't consider a digital executor nowadays. And so, yeah, it's much more important, I think, than people realise and not perhaps, for the reasons that they think it is for the digital era is here. Whether or not we like it is another matter, but it is here and things are going digital. I understand that Barclays Bank is going to get rid of all their branches. That's their plan from 2025 so it'll purely become online. That's a bit scary to think of but we're here, whether we like it or not, we're going cashless, aren't we? Cashless society's coming. So how are we logging what we've got? It's not the same as, you know, putting 8000 pounds in a teapot or a mattress. Is it? (laughs)
Genealogy Guy 7:52
Anecdotally? I mean, I'm aware of, without naming any names, there was a village hall that had set up a website, and the person who ran the website unfortunately passed away, and he was in their household, the only one that dealt with all the technical matters. So it's all on his laptop. Everything was on his laptop, and his wife didn't have the password, and the village hall committee couldn't get access to the website because they said, Well, you you didn't set the website up that you've not been identified as someone to take over from. So they've had to go through the whole rig roll of starting a brand new site from scratch. And it just makes you aware of how important it is somebody needs to be identified as you say. It doesn't matter if it's the same executor or someone else. Maybe, if you haven't got a son or daughter, a nephew or a niece, that's quite sort of clever with the technology, and it makes life a lot easier. So you must have some anecdotal stories.
Helen Forster 8:48
Oh, absolutely. And I think the the sort of business stroke website side of things is a really important one, because we did actually have this. We had a a gentleman who had a business partner, and his business partner, sadly, had a there was a sudden death. Now, what had happened was he actually didn't have a will at all. He had been separated from his wife, but not divorced, and so she was entitled to everything, which included half of this business. The main issue was, how could we manage getting access to, as you rightly say, run the website, get it set up, change who's going to be on there. How do we even deal with just day to day management? And the reality was, unfortunately, in this situation, without a will, we had to wait for something called Letters of administration, which is something you have to get for authority to deal with things nowadays, to do that with the probate registry, it could take several months, and so we were really at risk with this business of it going under because we couldn't access everything. So it's not just the website. It was actually the whole lot, and you're exactly correct in that if we had had access to the login details and the credentials, at least, we. Could have made sure that the website was running, and information could have been made available on there for clients, you know, so that they weren't going to perhaps lose that so there were, there was quite a significant sort of concern there. And I think anybody, certainly with a website and a business needs to think very carefully about how that's going to be managed moving forward, and make sure that this access is made available to someone to be able to enable that to run. But yes, there's, there's awful, lots of anecdotes Mell that we can, we can have the weird and wacky and the sort of, you know, sad situations where, you know, it's really commonplace for these things to happen. I think the main anecdote that I give you would be to do with capacity issues. We talk about wills a lot, of course we do. And people think, Oh, I only need to do that when I'm older. You know, I only need to think about making a list of these digital assets when I'm retired, or anything like that. Actually, it's really important to start thinking about them. As soon as you have what we call the digital footprint, we all should be thinking about this. Sadly, there was a young gentleman that was in a car accident, and he now suffers. He has what's called an acquired brain injury, and he had things like stocks and shares, accounts and all sorts of things. Now he hasn't died. He is alive, but he lacks capacity to manage his affairs, and he cannot remember any of these login details. And the problem we've got is because he didn't have them written down his loved ones who are now managing his affairs for him, can't get access to them. So it works exactly the same way. If he had planned and had prepared a will and had written down somewhere in one of these apps or something, his login details, would have been able to get access to these but actually what's happened with them is they just sat there. No one can access them, having to go through formalised processes to try and get hold of this information, and it's taking months and months and months, if you put that into a perspective of a will, if somebody requires that funds, those monies for whatever it might be, it doesn't give the families much closure if we're having to wait and struggle and increase cost on trying to get hold of these. There's a lot of sort of practicalities to the digital era that I think we're not necessarily in tune to just yet, because it's been a very changing environment, isn't it? I appreciate totally that from a digital perspective, even going five years ago, it moves on so fast, and people trying to keep up with it is really difficult, isn't it? I understand that, but I think we do need to forward plan. And I think the logic would be thinking about how we're going to access these, not just not just in the will, but also in case somebody needed to manage them for you for any reason.
Genealogy Guy 12:43
Genealogists are always gathering information, pictures, documents, and there obviously digitised, and they're all saved. And everyone is now being told, don't just put it on your hard drive, because your hard drive can die. It can just stop working one day, so you should back up onto the cloud, and everyone takes out accounts on that. It's a nightmare, because you've suddenly realised that you could be the sole person that's got the copy of all the pictures to do with, with a family member, and you have to know make sure that they're backed up on their behalf to be passed on to family members. So in the old days, it was just they got lost, and they got thrown in the bin, and then you can see a file and just go, can't out in the file. It won't let me go in. It says it's corrupt. It's a real eye opener for genealogists to start realising I need a backup of a backup and give other people access to it if something should happen to me. It's a crazy situation, but I think it will, long term, mean that we can share more.
Helen Forster 13:45
Well, this is it. There are the abilities now. There's the shared folders and things like that that you can do with families now. I mean, this is obviously, as I said, I'm a bit of a dinosaur, so I don't do a lot of these things, but I do know, obviously, even on my phone, I can share my Google Drive, for example, just simply that has all my photos on with family members. You can kind of have that, and I think that's quite a useful way, certainly with the mementos like that, with the photos that you want to look at. I think that's a really good thing to do, is to set up things like shared folders or shared drives. It doesn't get away from the fact that they can be corrupted or deleted, or things can happen to them. I appreciate, but it's a good starting point, isn't it, so that somebody else can access them, I feel like I can say, back in my day, at my age now, you know, back in my day when you had, you know, Kodak, which used to have the disposable cameras that you'd taken on the holiday and you go into places like boots, can you remember they'd have all the little things that you could download them and print them off, having those photos, I think it's more tangible. But a lot of people are converting those, I know, into things like digital photos now for, you know, preserving them so that they don't kind of wear out, and colors and things like that, which, again, great if you do that. But the downside to that is they do now become, as you rightly say, something that could be deleted. There is a myth, isn't there, that says if you delete something that is online, you never properly delete it. But I think there are ways and means of doing that, and I think if we save them on hard drives that do end up being destroyed, it's a major problem. So we need to be thinking through exactly how we're going to do this. Now I would suggest, as you rightly say, Yes, save them to your computer, but make sure someone does share them or share them with a member of family. If we are speaking to somebody about a will, these are the sorts of things we discuss with them. Is if you want somebody to access them, you could give them it now. Why? Why wait? Why wait until the end is nigh? As somebody said to me the other day, which I thought was quite a nice way of saying it, to worry about these things. Think about it now.
Genealogy Guy 15:51
Let's take a short break there listening to Helen Forster director at HTF legal limited, who is talking about wills and probates, which gives me the chance to say, if you're enjoying onchair genealogy podcast, could you do me a favor? Could you do two things? One, make sure you share it with your family and friends that you know would be interested. And if you have social media posts, please give a link to the podcast on your posts. As the more listeners we get, the more it encourages us to continue to produce episodes and a very big thank you for all the regular listeners each month as the audience just keeps growing. Thank you.
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Genealogy Guy 16:37
Let's return to Helen, Forster director of HTF legal limited discussing wills and probates and things that anyone who has or will be making a will should be considering. We've mentioned it in passing, but the change in digital assets and legacies, whatever you want to call them, how well, where do you think that generally, all solicitors are very clued up and know know about digital assets bring it to the forefront. When someone's talking about a will
Helen Forster 17:02
I train solicitors around the country. And what I've seen is there is now a major increase in people understanding about this. And I think the monetary side of things has been what's really pushed it forward. You know, like cryptocurrency, Bitcoin, all these sorts of things high risk, but also high value sort of items that could potentially be lost. And what is a worry from a solicitor perspective is if you have, say, Joe Bloggs, who has some cryptocurrency, and we don't know about it, and we act on behalf of the executors, and it's the executors job to collect in and give those assets to whoever they're going to, the beneficiaries they're called if that cryptocurrency is missed, and ultimately goes on to that unclaimed asset register that we mentioned, and eventually goes back to the Treasury, because we didn't know about it. And it comes to light later, once it's gone, it's gone, and those beneficiaries then have lost out. And whose responsibility is it? It's the executors. So the issue you've got is there is a risk for the executor, and so a solicitor now is getting very much clued into this, because these are potential risks, if you're looking at risk and compliance and wills. And this is very much what I do for for a living, in a way, we look at the risks. And the main risk now is the digital era. What I'm seeing is a lot of people now get clued into this, and there's books that have been written on it, so we actually have things circulated. There's training specifically available on it. But if we're not telling clients about it, or if people aren't coming to solicitors or practitioners to make a will and they're going to do them themselves at home, for example, there's no reason why you can't do that. It's just these are the things that we bring to the table. This is the expertise you need to think about, and it is likely that these things are going to be missed. And so the worry we would have is we will bring this into our checklists and discuss it with individuals. Now we were made aware of it when the Law Society brought that statistic out, which was really scary. Of 27% of us actually doing it, everyone's starting to bring it into their checklist to discuss with clients. But ultimately, a lot of clients aren't coming to practitioners anymore. They're wanting to do it online or do it themselves, and that's where our risk lies, we're then having to backtrack sadly when that loved one pass away, going right, what can we do? And so there are some real concerns from our point of view as professionals looking at the outlook of will drafting and looking at how people are preparing these I think in the future we're going to have to be much more careful, and I'm not convinced whether things like these, do it yourself, Post Office purchased ones that you fill in some details and sign probably are robust enough. I'm going to bring out another statistic, and it's not to freak people out. It's just as a genuine sort of concern we have the amount of contentious estates. So that's when estates are being challenged by beneficiaries or individuals. This has now increased, and the guidance is suggesting that one in four estates are contested and challenged for things like the validity of a will or things that are missing in the will that should be in there, so something called recretification, and the fact that a lot of these firms now offer contentious work, and there's been an increase twofold on the number of firms offering contentious probate advice, I think that speaks volumes to the issue we've got. And I think digital assets is one of the things that's going to be adding to that. So we need to be making sure that people are aware of it and that they're considering it, regardless of how they make their will.
Genealogy Guy 20:46
An incredible figure, one in every four. So that's that's a quarter. Every time there's four cases coming, one of them is going to actually start going. There's a few questions we need to double check in, and there's some gaps in and that, would you say? That can be quite frustrating and upsetting for the person that just thinks, oh, it's a clear cut. It's all been done. They did it years ago. Here's the paperwork. And they go, No, there's too many holes in this.
Helen Forster 21:13
Exactly that, And, you know, we we now have to provide it as a service. So I have somebody that works with me, a director that works with these. And it is scary just how many of these are thought to be robust. And actually, when we get to them and we look at them, we say, well, they probably were 15 or 20, years ago when they were done. But the laws have changed. Things have adapted. Whether or not they're valid is another question. So electronic wills are coming in, whether we like it or not, they are going to be coming in. The Law Commission has actually said they plan to bring in electronic wills. So I think the digital era is moving on again. So not only do we have, perhaps digital assets where we might store them on our phone, we might actually have our will stored on our phone. How do we access that? So there's going to be a whole ream of problems, and unless people are aware of it or understand that they need to be giving at least consideration to how to access these things, it's just going to cause their loved ones, as you say, a world of pain when they've they're already going through the upset of losing a loved one, but also the difficulties and costs associated with trying to get access, because this is where they need someone like ourselves, that increases costs to the state as a whole. They could end up, you know, losing out when they shouldn't be. So yes, so absolutely, people need to always think about a will, but think about this digital era, because it's not going to be long, is it, if I'm being honest, before all of our assets are going to be mainly digital. It's just the way of the world. Now, I never thought I'd be saying that when I first started practicing, let's just say, 10 plus years ago. I prefer.
Genealogy Guy 22:57
I've always been very aware that the solicitors still dealt with things like a fax machine and, you know, the digital signature, and which I know during lockdown caused absolute chaos, because it was like, no, no, we need the physical documents, but it's locked down. I can't get it to you that a lot of things had to move very quickly to to allow places of legal matters to actually start moving forward and dealing with things. It's changes that are having to be made because of things that happened in the past and highlighted it well before it causes any major problems.
Helen Forster 23:30
I would agree. I think covid did push forward the digital era to what we do. They brought in a temporary measure of electronically witnessing a will during covid so that we could witness it via things like zoom or FaceTime, that sort of thing. But there were specific rules surrounding it. They've been pulled. They have now gone because they're talking about bringing in new legislation to bring in electronic wills. In general, it did save the situations where I looked like I was casing people's houses because I was looking through the window to make sure they were signing it, right? I don't know how I wasn't arrested in Boroughbridge Morrisons car park, because it looks like I was doing drugs, you know, signing things on the bonnet of a car. But yeah, so it did kind of resolve some of those issues that we were finding with wills. And yes, a lot of people say, well, a will, you know, you still have to do on paper. You still have to physically sign it. But I teach a night class, an adult learning class. And I've spoken to them in depth about this, and what they have said, and the feedback they've given is digital assets. Yes, they have a lot of them, and they should be thinking about how those are going to be managed, and they're making their lists and things like that, which is great, but when it comes to the actual will itself, they said that they prefer to have a wet signature on their will, to physically sign it, because it's so important, and it's such an important document, that makes them kind of sit up and go, this is official, the worry that they have with an electronic will. And I think I would, I would say the same is, well, whatever. I'm just sat watching telly, and I just click, click, click. It's not even my. Signature, because when you do it, you just type your name. So how is that my signature? And what if I don't know my grandson decides to disown everybody else and pretends they're me? How does that work? And I totally get where they're coming from. So I think there's going to be a lot of restrictions and a lot of rules and regulations surrounding that side of things. So I would say to anybody listening, don't worry about this electronic era coming and electronic signatures. And should we be signing wills that way? I think you're going to have the two. You'll have the electronic version as well as a hand signed version. I think there'll be some specific rules and regulations. It will work for some people that are tech savvy. But also we're going to have the situation of people like me, the dinosaurs, who go, No, I want pen and paper, and that's still going to be around. And you know, for those people that feel that's more official, great. But in either scenario, the digital assets are in existence. It doesn't matter whether we've got the will and paper or not, these assets need to be located. How do we do that? That's where Dominic Hendry and his team can come in to assist. They can even do things like family trees if you need to, if you have to try and locate missing people. They do lots of things, but they can assist with these digital sort of asset searches and how they work. Hopefully, if people log everything correctly and they have these apps so they have been written down. We wouldn't necessarily even need that. So it saves on that time and cost as well. So there's lots of ways and means that we can do things. It just depends on how organised and how understanding people are of the concerns we have surrounding these assets.
Genealogy Guy 26:37
The other question I usually ask everybody is, have you or has someone in your family done your family tree?
Helen Forster 26:41
Yes, I did, actually. We have had someone do a family tree for me. So yeah, we had a very interesting one, because we had to do it at school. I'll give you an anecdote of my great, great aunt. She was brilliant. She was called Aunt Annie. She knew everybody. She was 99 when she died. So when we had to do this at school, for the sort of school plan and project. Thought she'll be a great person to get this side of the family. And we said to her, right, so what were your parents called? Oh, mum and dad. And she literally was like, Yeah, you know, it just yeah, that was, I don't know, Mad Auntie Nic or whoever it was, so what? So, yes, it was pretty hopeless helping with my Aunt Annie to get details. But we did have, we did have a genealogy sort of thing done. A lot of my family derives from Ireland despite my accent, and so we have an awful lot from there. And there's apparently a Marquess somewhere in our background. But apparently in Ireland, I think most people owned pieces of land like that, so I think there are lots of those. So I don't think it's anything to be too excited about. But yeah, I find it quite interesting to kind of see that history, and you see where you're from. I think it's different from some people are doing the DNA one. I haven't done that yet, to see, sort of where your blood comes from. Some people say they're part Viking and things like that. I'm not sure how I would find that, but certainly the family tree, I think it's quite useful, because you do get to see and and I have heard that in some cases, you know, it's who I've got, a half brother I didn't know I had, who's 17 years older than me, and I've got four nephews and nieces, things like that. People have skeletons that come out of the closet in these that might be good, it might be questionable, but it's certainly very interesting to have done, even from a personal level, rather than having to have it done because of wills and whatnots.
Genealogy Guy 28:26
The DNA side of things. I can reiterate that, yes, people can find out that they've got a son or daughter or more, and they've got great grandkids of somebody that they, you know, maybe met at a party many years ago. It only comes out because of things like ancestry or MyHeritage, and you've done the DNA, and it goes, this person looks as this person is your half sister or half brother. And it's like, but I haven't got any and it's like, the data is, you can't argue it. It's, it's, it's factual. So once it's highlighted, it, this can upset a lot of people, and they weren't. They weren't looking for that. They were just looking to connect with family, and they suddenly find out, Oh, I've got another son.? I didn't know I had another son. It can be a scary moment. So there's a lot of people like sort of going, it's great to do, but think of what could happen, and could you deal with that consequence?
Helen Forster 29:19
But think about it another way. I'm going to throw in an anecdote of a case that I dealt with when I was only a couple of years qualified. I had a gentleman ring me and he said, My brother's died, and I am his brother. We have no parents, as I understand it, I'm the beneficiary. And so I started taking down some details, and they said, What did this gentleman do for a living? Your brother? And he said, Oh, well, he worked on the rigs, you know, the oil rigs he used to go off for periods of time. Fine. So I took down these details, and then a day later, I got a phone call from a lady, and she said, Oh, my dad's died. I said, Oh, what was his name? She gave the same name as this brother had given me. And so I then discussed with her. She said, Oh, yeah, he's my dad, but he wasn't named on. My birth certificate. He used to stay with me and my mom. My mom's dead now, as are my grandparents. So I had nobody to corroborate anything from her side, and she said he used to stay with us when he wasn't working on the rigs. And actually, what he had was a double life. I don't actually know how he managed this. But he had a double life. So when they thought he was working on the rigs, he was going back over. And so anyway, I was left in a tricky situation, because this gentleman had died without a will. I have somebody allegedly purporting to be the daughter. The only way we could resolve it was a DNA test, so doing it at the back end, rather than having done it in a lifetime. So we only had a two week window where you can do that when someone's passed away. So I had to go and arrange this at Salford hospital. I had to assist in carrying it out, which a very strange thing to do for a solicitor, I was told to gown up. It was very strange. But anyway, when we got the DNA test done, it was 99.97% positive that she was his daughter, and so the result of that meant, from an inheritance perspective, she was inheriting the entire estate. Now, what that actually created in this scenario, and the reason why I really love this case was the uncle and his family, they were mortified that they're, you know, his his brother could have done this. And so they had this big family summer barbecue, and they brought this girl into the family and said, We're just so sorry. We didn't know you were there. And so it ended up with a really happy sort of ending. It wasn't about the money. In other cases, it is very much about the money. But in this one, it was about the family. And I think it that kind of shows how that DNA test, if it could have been done in his lifetime, it probably would have meant that there was a much nicer sort of family dynamic than we had with this poor, awkward girl just going, I'm his daughter and I don't even know who you are, and you're my uncle. So it was, it was a very sort of nice ending to a case, but genuinely a case I had to deal with. Now, most solicitors don't normally have things like that, but that seems to be just how my life worked as a as a qualified solicitor working through but it just shows the importance of these things and family trees and just knowing where you come from, because you know, as you rightly say, what this would have if you had a long lost son or daughter you didn't know you had, and that came out, they would actually be entitled on to claim on your estate as your child. And it can cause a world of pain for loved ones left behind you don't know about them. Definitely worth having a look. You know, not that, not that. Expect everybody listening to this is going to be like, oh, man, that office party kind of 10 years ago. Oh, maybe need to look into that. I hope they're not going to think that. But it's definitely a useful tool, not just to establish where, as you say, where you're from, but also to establish, you know, your family tree and where you come from. It's really useful.
Genealogy Guy 32:46
Well, thank you very much, Helen, because you've certainly raised a lot of questions for people to seriously think about when it comes to digital assets and thinking about details in your will. So all I can do is thanks from the listeners that it's just, it's just a refreshing to have, like a an insightful and professional viewpoint that can give us things to think about.
Helen Forster 33:10
Oh, you're very welcome, as you can probably tell, I could talk all day in these sorts of things. It's really important for people to understand. And thank you so much for having me. And if anybody does have any questions, of course, I'm sure they can pass them through to you. Mell, we can do a Q and A session if we needed to.
Genealogy Guy 33:27
That would be fantastic.
Helen Forster 33:28
Thank you very much for having me on. It's been a pleasure speaking to you, and thank you for listening,
Jingle 33:34
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