Passing on wealth

A roadmap for loved ones, not a pile of passwords

My professional insights · Lyudmil Karaulanov · 20 min read

Published: 1 October 2026 · Version 1.0

Current as of 24 September 2026. The European regulation on the protection of adults has been agreed, but has not yet been formally adopted. Next review: September 2027.

When you organise your assets for those who come after you, you are probably thinking about what they will receive. There is also a quieter question: how will they know what exists and where to begin? At a difficult time, even the simple search for a document can become a burden.

You know why you opened a particular account, where you keep the agreement and whom to speak to. These connections may not be obvious to your loved ones. Not because they are uninterested, but because until now they have not had to carry this part of your life.

For me, preparation is also a form of care. Its purpose is to enable loved ones to find what they need without receiving unrestricted access prematurely, and without confusing knowledge of an asset with the right to dispose of it.

What are you actually trying to provide for?

I see two separate conversations here. One concerns the time when you are alive but unable to manage your affairs. The other concerns the people who will have to settle them after your death. The distinction is substantial, and one document can rarely address both tasks.

These situations are not interchangeable. After death, questions arise about inheritance, proof of rights and administration of the estate, for which the law has familiar instruments: a will, a certificate of heirs, acceptance of the inheritance. Incapacity during one's lifetime, however, requires actions that cannot wait: ongoing payments, property maintenance, signing documents and keeping the business running. Here, the gap is much wider than most people suppose.

Bulgarian law currently has no power of attorney that takes effect or remains valid precisely when the person granting it loses the ability to manage their affairs. On the contrary, an ordinary power of attorney terminates when that person is placed under interdiction, that is, at exactly the point when it is most needed. The family is left between two uncomfortable positions: an old power of attorney whose validity the bank or counterparty may question, and court proceedings for interdiction that take time and deprive the person of autonomy. The legal community has long discussed the need to rethink the rules on interdiction, inherited from socialist legal doctrine, in favour of support measures that respect the person's wishes. Until this happens, advance planning in Bulgaria requires more ingenuity, not less.

Europe, meanwhile, is moving in this direction. The new European regulation on the protection of adults, on which the Council and Parliament reached agreement in May 2026, determines which court has jurisdiction in cross-border cases, which law applies and the conditions for recognising measures or powers of representation created in another country. It also introduces a European certificate of support and representation. The aim is to enable people to arrange their protection in advance and have their choices respected. The need is clear: according to EU data, the proportion of people over 65 living with some form of disability will increase by 77% by 2050. The regulation, however, will facilitate recognition of existing powers. It cannot create a power where national law does not permit one.

That is why a will, a power of attorney or a digital setting rarely addresses both situations. Each instrument has a specific purpose, and its effect depends on the document, the applicable law and the rules of the institution concerned.

What needs to be discoverable?

The asset map extends far beyond bank accounts. It covers bank, investment and payment accounts, pension and insurance rights, real estate and limited rights in rem, company holdings, loans made, receivables and guarantees. It includes valuables such as works of art, jewellery, rare books, coins and collections, as well as cryptoassets, digital wallets and other online assets. Liabilities, recurring payments and contracts requiring action within a particular period are no less important.

Assets outside your country of residence deserve particular attention. Their documents are often in another language, they are administered by another institution and they are subject to different rules. These are precisely the assets most likely to disappear from your loved ones' view.

For each asset, it helps to be able to establish at least where it is, whose name it is in, what document evidences it and whom the person handling the matter should contact. Values and exact numbers can be recorded as appropriate. Often the first task is simply for loved ones to learn that the asset exists.

Should the file contain passwords?

The wish to keep everything in one place and spare loved ones confusion is entirely natural. In my view, however, an indication of where assets are held and the means of immediate access to them are two different things. Guidance can then be provided without simultaneously handing over every ability to act.

The map says: there is an account at this bank, the documents are in this location, and if something happens, contact this person. A password or recovery code gives something entirely different: the ability to enter the account immediately and exercise control that the password holder may not be entitled to exercise.

An ordinary file containing all assets, passwords, PINs, two-factor authentication codes and cryptographic keys puts both the map and access in one place. If it falls into the wrong hands, the same orderliness intended to help the family facilitates misuse. And the phone holding it may be lost, damaged, locked, wiped or simply sold before anyone remembers what it contains.

The practical goal is not a pile of passwords. It is to identify what exists, where it is and the lawful procedure for claiming it. Access to the accounts themselves is planned separately and carefully.

When access depends on the key being kept safe

For self-custodied cryptoassets, the technical means of access also need preparation. Inheritance law alone cannot restore a lost private key. For assets held through a provider, its procedures and the applicable rules need to be checked. The way an asset is held therefore determines how continuity must be arranged.

Chainalysis estimates of probably lost bitcoins put this problem into a wider perspective. They are examined separately in “When the key is the asset itself”, together with the limitations of the methodology. For a personal plan, it is enough to establish whether access to your assets depends on information that no one else will be able to find when needed.

The conclusion is that separating custody here is not a matter of caution, but of the survival of the asset itself. The key should not be recorded in one place accessible to everyone. Nor should it be known only to the owner. The solution is a predesigned arrangement in which no single person holds everything, but specified people together, under specified conditions, can restore access.

One file, the cloud or two USB drives?

The conversation quickly reaches the question of where to record everything. For me, the storage medium is the final decision, after it is clear who will maintain the information and how another person will find it. A solution that is convenient for you is valuable only if it can also be used without your explanations.

A file on a phone is quick to update, but depends on one device. The cloud is convenient for synchronisation, but requires clarity about who can enter it and how access is restored if the only person who knows the password is absent. Two USB drives in different locations provide a backup, but do not answer which version is current, who knows the password, whether the medium still works and whether the format will remain readable in ten years.

The popular solution of leaving a will with a notary together with a USB drive creates another problem. The legal instrument and the information archive have different lifecycles. The person's wishes may remain unchanged for years, while accounts, investments and devices change constantly. Every update to the list would require another visit to the notary, while an outdated list is misleading.

A shared account or joint bank account may provide access today, but changes ownership and control of the asset. This is no longer a decision about information but about property, with consequences for inheritance.

If you choose digital storage, the question is not only whether the file is encrypted. It is also about backups, keeping it current, recovering access and the person who knows how to find the information. With a specialist service, what matters includes how it protects data, the conditions for releasing it, the ability to download a copy and what happens if the provider ceases operating.

What technology solves, and what it does not

In recent years, services designed specifically for this problem have emerged. I am interested in them not to identify “the best”, but because they illustrate the principles behind a well-considered mechanism.

Google allows you to designate people to be notified or receive selected data if your account remains inactive for a specified period. Apple lets you designate a trusted person who, after your death, can request access to data by presenting a previously supplied key and proof of death. Some password managers offer emergency access: the trusted person makes a request, but it is fulfilled only after a specified waiting period during which the owner can refuse it.

Specialist platforms go further. Succession Keeper deliberately separates the map from the keys. The user describes where accounts, investments, properties, insurance and documents are held, but the platform does not store banking passwords, PINs or cryptographic keys. After prolonged inactivity, it sends warnings to the user, contacts the designated trusted person, follows a procedure lasting several weeks and only then provides organised information, without access to the assets. DGLegacy offers a broader model in which particular assets, documents and instructions are linked to designated recipients, while its own mechanism monitors prolonged inactivity.

The better solutions follow the same sequence: a warning to the owner, a waiting period, a further check, contact with more than one trusted person and disclosure only of a predetermined level of information. The reason is simple. Inactivity does not prove death. The person may be ill, abroad, without a phone or may simply have changed services. A mechanism that reveals everything at the first signs of silence is more dangerous than having no mechanism.

This is also where technology reaches its limit. The platforms themselves explicitly state that they are not wills, do not provide estate planning and do not create a right to dispose of assets. They help loved ones understand where to look. They do not determine who is entitled to receive, manage or transfer the asset.

Who knows, and what can they do?

Designating a trusted person is an important step. But each separate arrangement permits something different. Being notified, finding a document, representing the owner and inheriting property are different tasks. Trust between you does not erase these boundaries.

With financial platforms, the distinctions are particularly important. At IBKR, for example, a trusted contact is someone the broker may contact in certain circumstances, but that does not in itself give them access to the account. They are neither an authorised representative nor an heir. Separately, for some account types and in some countries, a beneficiary may be designated to receive the assets, while the available features depend on the account type and the brokerage entity with which you have contracted.

It is therefore useful to answer each of the following questions separately:

• Who needs to learn that something has happened?
• Who may receive the asset map?
• Who is entitled to speak to institutions on your behalf?
• Who inherits, and who will administer the estate?
• If an heir cannot act independently, who will represent them, and on what basis?

The final question is not technical. Being a minor, being absent or being unable to act independently does not extinguish a person's inheritance rights, but requires additional safeguards and appropriate representation. It is not enough for the family to know what should happen. There must be a lawful way for it to happen.

When the owner effectively is the company

The same problem exists in business, where the consequences arrive faster and are more visible. Contracts, access to banking systems, relationships with key customers, licences, domains, accounting accounts and practical knowledge are often concentrated in one person. In their absence, the company formally continues to exist but loses its ability to act.

The case of Canadian cryptocurrency exchange QuadrigaCX is revealing. Its founder died unexpectedly in late 2018, and it emerged that he had been the only person controlling access to customer funds. The subsequent investigation also found serious misconduct. The lesson is twofold. One person holding all the keys represents both a risk of loss and an absence of oversight. Dividing access protects against misuse as well as unforeseen events.

The Bulgarian example is more ordinary, but much more common. When the sole owner and managing director of a single-member limited liability company dies, the company is left without a representative. The heirs must first be identified, then accept the inheritance, decide who the new managing director will be and register that person in the Commercial Register. Meanwhile, salaries, supplier payments and banking operations effectively stop, while customers and partners look for someone who can respond. The company's governing documents can provide for what happens in such a situation. Yet someone has very rarely taken care of this while there was still time.

What about valuables and insurance?

For a painting, a collection, jewellery or rare books, “we own them” is not always enough. Photographs, an inventory, provenance, valuations, invoices or other documents are useful for identifying the items and establishing their value.

Insurance is a separate decision, and everything depends on the terms of the particular policy: which items it covers, how their value is proven, where they may be kept and what requirements apply to safes and security. The existence and value of an item need to be demonstrable before an event, not afterwards. Insurance covers specified risks, but does not replace an inventory, ownership documents and a continuity plan.

A test worth more than the list

The best test I know is for a trusted person to work through the instructions without prompting: to identify the main assets and liabilities, where the documents are, whom to contact and which actions will require a separate legal basis, as well as how to find current instructions if your usual device is unavailable. This reveals what still needs explanation while there is time to add it calmly.

This is a test of the system, not of your loved ones' loyalty. If the person does not know where to begin, there is probably a missing connection between information, documents and rights.

The test is meaningful only if repeated. A map that is not maintained becomes outdated faster than a will. It is reasonable to review it at least annually and after every major event: buying a property, opening an account abroad, marriage or divorce, the birth of a child, or selling a company stake. Like a drill, it reveals weaknesses while someone is still there to remedy them.

As the analysis “Where is the key to the vault?” shows, discovering the asset is only the beginning. The entire chain of rights leading to the person who can act must then be traced and evidenced.

Where is the point of instability?

What this concept means →

It appears when what is orderly for you remains incomprehensible to the next person. There may be a will, an archive and a trusted loved one, but the connection between them, or the right to take the necessary action, may be missing.

With assets in different countries, company holdings, cryptoassets and valuables, this connection requires particular attention. The adviser's task is to help information, access and rights work together, without becoming the custodian of everyone else's passwords and valuables.

The people for whom the wealth has been accumulated also deserve sufficiently clear guidance. It will not remove the difficulty of the moment. But it may spare them some uncertainty and leave them more strength for what truly cannot be prepared for in advance.

This material is of a general analytical nature and does not constitute individual legal, tax, financial or investment advice.