Tales from the Crypt 8: “I too am waiting on this domain. I’ll see you in the arena in 2026!”

Most digital assets have some kind of time-limit within which they need to be recovered by a fiduciary if they are to be administered. Photos and emails will start being deleted within 12 to 18 months, loyalty point accounts will close, and domain names will expire. Today we will review yet another case of improper digital planning in relation to a domain name.

In 2022, a Reddit User made a post seeking aid in contacting a deceased domain name owner’s family. The expiration of the domain was not set to occur until 2026. The Reddit User had contacted the privacy email linked to the domain names and filled out contact forms in an attempt to discuss a sale of the domain name with the estate’s administrator. They never heard back. They then decided to take to Reddit to seek advice on how to reach the estate’s fiduciary.

The responses varied from ‘leave them alone’ to ‘contact the domain name host so they can try and put you in contact with them’ to ‘you can hire someone to forensically determine who the domain name owner is.’ Someone even left a comment saying “I too am waiting on this domain. I’ll see you in the arena in 2026!” Obviously, none of these answers were particularly helpful.

The most likely situation here is that the domain name owner’s family had no idea they were in possession of the domain, and did not have access to the email address where the Reddit User’s outreach was landing. Seeing as the domain’s top-level domain was ‘.org’, it was likely linked to a non-profit organization and losing the domain would not be great for them. It seems like the estate intended for the website to stay up, but they will be in for a bad surprise in 2026 when the domain name is auctioned off.

As the number of digital accounts any given individual has scales, expecting fiduciaries to use password, 2FA, and contacting account providers to get administration done is unrealistic. Had the domain owner used Bequest, the domain would have been accounted for by the estate within a couple of weeks of probate starting.

Check out Bequest.com to see our digital asset planning services.

See you next time!