A person can manage nearly every aspect of their personal and financial affairs online. An individual can transact most affairs without any in-person meetings and without exchanging any physical documents, including filing taxes, opening bank accounts, and purchasing real estate.

California, like most other states, however, does not recognize electronic wills. Creating an enforceable will still requires the preparation and delivery of a physical document, the execution of that document in the presence of two witnesses, and the physical storage and safekeeping of the executed and witnessed original. California’s Uniform Electronic Signature Law, which gives electronic contracts the same legal force as signed paper documents, excludes the creation and execution of wills, codicils and testamentary trusts.