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Property (Digital Assets etc) Act 2025

A short Act of the UK Parliament that received Royal Assent in December 2025 and formally recognises that certain digital assets — including crypto-tokens, non-fungible tokens, and other digital things — can be treated as personal property in England, Wales, and Northern Ireland. The Act creates what is often described as a "third category" of personal property, alongside the two traditional categories (physical things in possession; choses in action such as debts and contractual rights), into which digital things did not fit cleanly under earlier law. [source: legislation-gov-uk/property-digital-assets-act-2025-2026-05-02.html]

Background: the Law Commission spent several years investigating the legal status of digital assets. Courts had begun treating cryptocurrency and similar assets as property in individual decisions (most prominently AA v Persons Unknown [2019] in the High Court of England and Wales) but there was no statutory confirmation. The 2025 Act ratifies and generalises the case-law position rather than inventing new rules — the practical effect for most disputes is to remove an argument the losing side could otherwise have run.

For executors, the consequences are pragmatic rather than dramatic:

  • Qualifying digital assets are part of the estate and can be included in the application for a grant of probate or letters of administration.
  • A request to a platform can be framed as a property claim by the legal personal representative rather than a request for "account access," giving a stronger legal footing for negotiation with provider legal teams (particularly relevant to US-headquartered platforms).
  • Cryptocurrency held on a custodial exchange is treated as a debt owed by the exchange to the estate (similar to a bank balance), strengthening the executor's claim against the exchange.

Limits of the Act:

  • It does not override the terms of service of any individual platform; Apple, Google, and Meta retain their own bereavement policies.
  • It does not require a provider to disclose passwords or login credentials.
  • It does not recover a lost private key or seed phrase for a non-custodial cryptocurrency wallet — without the key, the asset remains unrecoverable regardless of the legal characterisation.
  • It does not extend to Scotland. The Scottish Government is consulting separately on equivalent provisions; as of 2026 Scottish executors rely on common law and the existing confirmation process.

The Act is short — its substantive provision is a single recognition clause — but its effect is to consolidate around a decade of judicial development into a clear statutory base. [source: legislation-gov-uk/property-digital-assets-act-2025-2026-05-02.html]

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Last verified: 2 May 2026 against legislation.gov.uk Property (Digital Assets etc) Act 2025.