Powers of Attorney — Digital Assets & Agent Oversight

Two of the most significant — and most overlooked — POA issues involve digital property and the lack of any built-in accountability mechanism for agents. Both are areas where the law has evolved faster than most people's estate planning documents.

POA and Digital Assets — The New Frontier

Pennsylvania adopted the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act (RUFADAA) in 2020, codified at 20 Pa.C.S. Chapter 39. RUFADAA gives agents under a POA — along with executors, trustees, and guardians — legal authority to access the principal's digital assets, subject to the principal's directions and the terms of service agreements with the custodian (Google, Apple, Facebook, financial platforms, etc.).

The law is clear. The practical reality is harder. Legal authority to access a digital account is meaningless if the agent doesn't know the account exists or can't get past the login screen.

This is an acute problem with:

• Cryptocurrency: Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other digital currencies held in self-custodied wallets (hardware wallets, software wallets) are controlled by private keys or seed phrases. There is no "forgot password" reset. There is no customer service number. If the principal becomes incapacitated and the agent doesn't have the seed phrase, those assets are permanently inaccessible. No court order, no statute, and no amount of legal authority can recover a lost private key. Exchange-held crypto (Coinbase, Kraken) is somewhat easier — RUFADAA gives the agent a legal basis to contact the exchange — but the verification process is slow and the exchange may not cooperate without a court order regardless of what the statute says.
• Online-only financial accounts: Brokerages, savings accounts, and payment platforms that exist only online (Robinhood, Wealthfront, Venmo, PayPal) may require multi-factor authentication tied to the principal's phone. If the agent doesn't have access to the principal's phone or email, the account recovery process can take weeks.
• Business accounts: If the principal runs a business through online platforms (Shopify, Stripe, AWS, domain registrars), loss of access can mean loss of revenue, loss of customers, and potentially loss of the business itself.

The solution is planning, not litigation. When we draft a POA, we discuss digital asset management with the client and recommend maintaining a secure digital asset inventory — a list of accounts, credentials, and recovery methods stored in a location the agent can access (a fireproof safe, a sealed envelope with the attorney, or a dedicated password manager with the master password shared with the agent). The POA itself should include specific RUFADAA authorization language and, where appropriate, direction to custodians to grant the agent access.

Agent Accounting — The Orphans' Court Backstop

A power of attorney grants enormous authority with minimal oversight. Unlike an executor (who files an account with the Register and is subject to audit) or a trustee (who accounts to beneficiaries and can be compelled to account by the court), a POA agent operates largely in the dark. There's no filing requirement, no mandatory reporting, and no automatic judicial review.

This makes POA abuse the most common form of financial elder abuse in Pennsylvania — and the hardest to detect until significant damage has been done.

But the law provides a remedy. Under 20 Pa.C.S. § 5610, any "interested person" — including the principal, a family member, the principal's guardian, or an agency authorized to protect the elderly — can petition the Orphans' Court to:

• Compel the agent to file an account — a full accounting of every dollar received, spent, invested, and transferred under the POA. The court uses the same accounting format required for executors and trustees (Pa.O.C. Rule 2.1).
• Review the agent's conduct — including whether the agent complied with the duties under § 5601.3 (good faith, best interest, scope of authority) and whether any self-dealing occurred.
• Surcharge the agent — if the agent mismanaged assets, made unauthorized gifts, or engaged in self-dealing, the court can hold the agent personally liable for the losses.
• Remove the agent and revoke the POA — the nuclear option, usually combined with a petition for guardianship if the principal is still alive and incapacitated.

We have handled POA accounting proceedings on both sides — families seeking to compel an accounting from a suspected bad actor, and agents who acted properly but need to demonstrate their conduct to skeptical family members. If you suspect a POA agent is misusing an elderly family member's assets, don't wait. The longer the abuse continues, the less likely recovery becomes.