Digital Assets and Probate in Pennsylvania: RUFADAA, Short Certificates, and Online Accounts

Pennsylvania executors have clearer legal footing on digital assets than most people realize — the Commonwealth adopted its version of the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA) in 2020 (Act 72, at 20 Pa.C.S. Chapter 39). What the law doesn't do is make the process fast or automatic. Here's how the pieces fit for a Pennsylvania estate, in plain language.

What RUFADAA actually gives an executor

RUFADAA creates a legal hierarchy for who controls a deceased person's digital assets:

1. The platform's own tool comes first. If the person used Google's Inactive Account Manager or named an Apple Legacy Contact, that designation overrides everything — including the will.
2. The will comes second. Explicit digital-asset provisions in a will govern where no online tool was used.
3. Platform terms of service come third. Where neither exists, each platform's terms control — which is why the official deceased-user processes matter so much.

Practical translation: the law gives a properly appointed Pennsylvania executor the right to manage digital assets, but access still flows through each platform's process. RUFADAA is why those processes exist; it is not a skip-the-line pass. And for content like emails, platforms can still require specific consent or a court order before disclosing it.

The short certificate — Pennsylvania's key document

The document platforms and banks want from a PA executor is the short certificate: a one-page paper from the county Register of Wills proving your appointment as executor or administrator. In Allegheny County, that's the Register of Wills in the City-County Building downtown; certificates cost a few dollars each. Order several — some institutions want a recently dated one, and platforms occasionally sit on requests long enough that a fresh certificate helps.

The Allegheny County sequence

1. Probate opens at the Register of Wills (Department of Court Records, Wills/Orphans' Court Division for Allegheny County). Bring the will, the death certificate, and ID; you'll be sworn in and receive letters testamentary — or letters of administration if there's no will.
2. Get short certificates at the same visit — 5 to 10.
3. Inventory digital assets alongside physical ones. PA inheritance tax filings concern themselves with assets of value — PayPal balances, crypto, unpaid AdSense are estate assets; the Facebook account is not. Your attorney handles the tax side; the point is the digital inventory feeds it.
4. File platform requests with the short certificate, death certificate, and your ID — our executor document checklist covers each platform's variations.

Where families get stuck

• Apple: without a Legacy Contact, iCloud data access generally requires a court order — a real Orphans' Court petition in PA, drafted by the estate's attorney. Deletion, mercifully, doesn't. Details in our Apple guide.
• Small estates: when there's no probate (PA's small-estate procedures, or everything passed outside probate), some platforms accept next-of-kin documentation instead — slower and less certain, but workable.
• Out-of-state platforms, PA estate: the platforms apply their own processes regardless of state, but your authority documents are PA documents — the short certificate travels fine.