Crypto reporting rules could help heirs to recover assets

New international reporting rules requiring overseas crypto-asset businesses to share information about UK customers with HM Revenue & Customs could help tackle a growing problem for families: cryptocurrencies that disappear from estates because executors cannot identify or access them.

TWM Solicitors, a private wealth and family law firm, says executors are increasingly encountering estates where there are indications that the deceased owned cryptocurrency but no straightforward way of establishing where those assets are held.

The problem reflects the fundamentally different way in which crypto-assets are owned and recorded compared with traditional investments. Cryptocurrency holdings are often associated with wallet addresses rather than an individual’s name, while access can depend on private keys, passwords or other security arrangements known only to the owner.

As cryptocurrency ownership has become more widespread, that creates a growing challenge when someone dies. Families can potentially lose access to assets worth tens or even hundreds of thousands of pounds simply because nobody knows where they are held or how they can be accessed.

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