Estate Planning Laws by State (2026): Transfer on Death Deeds, Electronic Wills, and Digital Asset Access
This page compares three estate planning laws across all 50 states and the District of Columbia: transfer-on-death deeds for real property, electronic wills, and fiduciary access to digital assets. Every yes in the table below links to the statute that supports it, and states this review could not confirm are marked “Not verified” instead of guessed. We checked each entry against the state’s own code site or the Uniform Law Commission’s enactment records during September 2026, and we review the page at least once a year or whenever a state changes its law.
Cite this page: Ridley Law, “Estate Planning Laws by State (2026): Transfer on Death Deeds, Electronic Wills, and Digital Asset Access,” ridleylawoffices.com/estate-planning-laws-by-state/, September 2026.
Key findings
- At least twenty-seven states and the District of Columbia authorize a transfer-on-death deed for real property. California is one of them, under Probate Code section 5600, though the law is scheduled to repeal itself on January 1, 2032 unless the legislature extends it again.
- Only fourteen states and DC, fifteen jurisdictions in all, currently let someone execute a will that exists solely as an electronic record. California is not one of them: Probate Code section 6110 requires a will to be in writing, signed, and witnessed by two people, and California has no statute authorizing a will that exists only as an electronic record.
- At least forty states and the District of Columbia give fiduciaries statutory authority over a deceased or incapacitated person’s digital accounts, under RUFADAA itself or a same-purpose statute with a different name. California is one of them, under Probate Code section 870. Massachusetts and Louisiana are the clearest holdouts: Massachusetts has no dedicated statute at all, and Louisiana’s law reaches only an executor, not a trustee or an agent under a power of attorney.
- Maryland enacted its own transfer-on-death deed act in 2026, and it takes effect October 1, 2026, so it was not yet in force when this page was last reviewed.
- Kentucky’s electronic wills law, KRS 394.706, only took effect July 15, 2026, so it had been in force a little over two months as of this page’s last review.
- Some online summaries list Minnesota as an electronic wills state. We found no electronic wills article in Minnesota Statutes chapter 524, the state’s probate code, or elsewhere in Minnesota’s statutes.
State-by-state comparison
Each column links to the statute that supports a “Yes.” A “No” means we found no statute (or, in Maryland’s case, found one that is not in effect yet). “Not verified” means we could not confirm either answer from a primary source during this review. We did not guess. See the Methodology section.
Transfer-on-death deeds for real property
A transfer-on-death deed, sometimes called a beneficiary deed, lets someone name a beneficiary to receive their house or land automatically at death, without a probate court proceeding. The owner signs and records the deed while alive, keeps full control of the property, and can revoke or change it at any time before death. It only takes effect on death, and it does not require the beneficiary’s knowledge or consent while the owner is alive.
Many states created this option by adopting the Uniform Real Property Transfer on Death Act, a model law from the Uniform Law Commission. Others built their own version under a different name, some before the uniform act existed. A few states use a related but distinct mechanism: Ohio records a “transfer on death designation affidavit” rather than a deed,. States without any version of this law still let people avoid probate on real estate through a revocable living trust or, in some states, a different deed form such as a life estate deed.
Electronic wills
An electronic will exists only as an electronic record. There is no signed paper original: the testator signs on a screen, and some of these states let the witnesses take part remotely by video. A law that lets witnesses appear by video for an otherwise ordinary paper will is a different thing. Several states allow that kind of remote witnessing without allowing the will itself to be a purely electronic document, and we did not count those states as “yes” in the table above.
A minority of states allow electronic wills at all, and they got there two different ways. Some adopted the Uniform Electronic Wills Act, a 2019 model law. Others, including Nevada and Florida, wrote their own electronic will statutes years before the uniform act existed. Oklahoma’s 2024 law follows a newer, broader Uniform Law Commission model built around electronic estate planning documents generally, not the 2019 wills-only act.
Fiduciary access to digital assets
The Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act gives an executor, trustee, agent under a power of attorney, or court-appointed conservator legal authority to manage a person’s digital accounts after death or incapacity: email, cloud storage, social media, online banking, anything with a login. Most states adopted it under that exact name. A handful adopted the same framework under a different name, among them Iowa’s “Iowa Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act,” Michigan’s and New Jersey’s “fiduciary access to digital assets act” without the word “Revised,” and Wisconsin’s “Digital Property Act.” Delaware and New York both enacted their own, shorter or modified versions rather than the uniform text verbatim.
The law sets a priority order for who controls access. An online tool the account holder set up directly with the company, like an inactive account manager or legacy contact setting, comes first and overrides anything else. If there is no online tool, the account holder’s own will, trust, or power of attorney controls. If neither exists, the company’s terms of service apply by default, which is usually the least generous option. The custodian, meaning the company that holds the account, still controls what it will hand over. Most will disclose a catalog of what exists, like a list of emails, before they will disclose the content of private messages, and they can require a certified death certificate, letters testamentary, or a court order first. An estate plan that names a digital executor and lists key accounts, without listing passwords in the document itself, makes this process faster regardless of which state’s version of the law applies.
What this means in California
California authorizes a transfer-on-death deed under Probate Code section 5600 and the sections that follow it, but the law carries a sunset date of January 1, 2032. Our guide to the California transfer-on-death deed covers how it works and when a trust is the better choice, and our comparison of a life estate deed, a transfer-on-death deed, and a trust walks through the tradeoffs, including how each interacts with a living trust.
California has no statute authorizing electronic wills. Probate Code section 6110 requires a will to be in writing, signed, and witnessed by two people who watch the signing or the testator’s acknowledgment of it. Our page on whether electronic or online wills are valid in California and the glossary entry on a will cover the current signing requirements in more detail.
California enacted its own version of RUFADAA at Probate Code section 870 and the sections that follow it, so an executor or successor trustee can seek legal authority over a deceased person’s online accounts, subject to whatever online tool the account holder set up in advance and to the account provider’s own terms of service. As of January 1, 2025, the law also covers agents acting under a power of attorney and court-appointed conservators, in addition to executors and trustees. Our guides to digital assets in a California estate plan and what happens to cryptocurrency and other digital assets in probate go through what this means in practice.
Related pages on this site
- How Do I Avoid Probate Court in California?
- Are Payable-on-Death Accounts as Good as a Trust?
- Your Will Says One Thing, Your 401(k) Another
- Key Differences in Joint Tenancy vs Trust
- Community Property With Right of Survivorship vs. Joint Tenancy
- Glossary: Probate
Methodology
For each state’s transfer-on-death deed, electronic wills, and digital assets law, we started from the Uniform Law Commission’s enactment records where a uniform act applied, then confirmed the current statute text directly on that state’s own legislature or code website. Non-uniform statutes were located and confirmed the same way, on the state’s own site, not through a legal directory or aggregator. Every citation in the table links to that primary source. We checked sources between September 8 and September 13, 2026.
We could not independently confirm a transfer-on-death deed answer for Alaska, Arkansas, Indiana, Mississippi, or New Mexico, or a digital assets answer for Alabama, Alaska, Arkansas, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Mississippi, New Mexico, or Tennessee, during this review cycle. Those states’ code sites either blocked automated access or would not render the statute text we needed, and we chose not to guess or repeat an unverified claim from a secondary source. Those cells say “Not verified” rather than a citation. We plan to confirm them by hand before the next update.
This page does not cover remote online notarization, which is a separate topic from any of the three laws above. It also does not restate California’s small estate limits or probate timeline, which change on their own schedule and are covered on other pages of this site. We excluded proposed bills that have not been enacted, and we noted the effective date of any law enacted in 2025 or 2026 that was not yet in force as of this review.
Next scheduled review: September 2027, or sooner if a state enacts a relevant law. To report an error, email eric@ridleylawoffices.com.
Want a straight read on where you stand?
Talk to Eric. A free 30-minute call, no pitch. He’ll tell you where you’re exposed, what it would cost to fix, and what you can skip.
Talk to Eric