What it means
Section 740.08 sets the chapter's reach by the user, not the company. Chapter 740 applies to a custodian if the user resides in this state or resided in this state at the time of the user's death — wherever the servers or the corporate headquarters happen to be.
It reaches fiduciaries under wills, trusts, and powers of attorney executed before, on, or after July 1, 2016; personal representatives of decedents who died before, on, or after that date; guardianships whenever commenced; and trusts whenever created. One carve-out: the chapter does not apply to a digital asset of an employer used by an employee in the ordinary course of the employer's business.
- Trigger: the user resides or resided in Florida at death — the custodian's location is irrelevant (§740.08(2)).
- Applies to instruments executed and deaths occurring before, on, or after July 1, 2016 (§740.08(1)).
- Employer digital assets used by an employee in the ordinary course of the employer's business are excluded (§740.08(3)).
- Covers all four fiduciary types — personal representatives, guardians, agents, and trustees.
How it plays out
The residency hook is what makes the chapter usable: a Sarasota decedent's Gmail, iCloud, or exchange account is within reach because the decedent lived here, not because the company does business here. The retroactivity language means nobody's 2010 will is too old to work with. The employer exclusion is the limit we flag most — the work laptop and the company mailbox belong to the employer, and this chapter will not open them.
Where this shows up
Pages on this site where § 740.08 does real work:
