Where sharing is managed
All sharing in Estate Kit is managed in one place: Vault → Sharing & Permissions (Inviting Trusted Contacts to your Estate Kit has the step-by-step for inviting someone). From this screen, you control who can see what across your Estate Kit.
The screen opens to a "Key roles to assign" panel listing the five roles you have not yet designated: Status Verifier, Executor, Power of Attorney for Property, Power of Attorney for Personal Care, and Substitute Decision Maker (Medical). Each card explains why the role matters and includes an Assign button. The Status Verifier button takes you to Key Contacts (see Life status changes), where Status Verifiers are managed. The other four roles are assigned from this screen as part of setting up access for a Trusted Contact. Below the roles panel, you'll see the people who already have access, then the contacts available for new access setup.
What you can share
- Your Estate Organization: your full structured record, organized into four areas (About You, Finances, Directives, and For Loved Ones).
- Your Vault items, protected with an extra layer of encryption with strict access controls.
- High-sensitivity categories get a final review step. When you set up access, the wizard surfaces a dedicated review of the most sensitive categories (your passwords, security codes and safe combinations, your will and beneficiaries, and your final messages), so you can confirm exactly what's being unlocked before saving.
The big picture
- You decide everything. Nothing is shared by default; all access is something you set up.
- A newly-invited Trusted Contact sees only the items you set to Now when you invited them. If you granted no Now access, they see nothing on first sign-in. Any access set to Upon Incapacity or After Passing, and any legal-role baseline you have assigned (Executor, Power of Attorney for Property, Power of Attorney for Personal Care, or Substitute Decision Maker (Medical)), appears only after a Status Verifier confirms the matching life status and the Access Delay has elapsed (see Life status changes).
- All access is granted to a specific person; nothing is global.
- You can change or revoke access at any time while you are able to manage your account.
How permissions are shaped
Who you share with
All access is granted to a specific Trusted Contact. Trusted Contacts fall into two kinds:
- Trusted Contacts filling a legal key role: people you designate to hold a legal role like Executor, Power of Attorney for Property, Power of Attorney for Personal Care, or Substitute Decision Maker (Medical). These come with predefined permission baselines (see "Legal key roles" below).
- Trusted Contacts with custom permissions: friends, family members, advisors, or anyone else you choose. No legal role attached; you decide what each one sees, item by item. (The in-product label for this option during setup is "Custom Permissions.")
What you share: fully flexible
- You can mix and match across the four areas of your Estate Organization (About You, Finances, Directives, For Loved Ones), down to specific sections. You're not forced to share a whole area.
- Vault items become accessible to a Trusted Contact when you share the Estate Organization section they belong to. The one exception is Passwords, which can be shared as their own Vault category.
- Different Trusted Contacts can have completely different access, overlapping or entirely separate. Trusted Contacts do not see each other's access.
When access takes effect: three stages
Access is set to one of three life stages, per section, per Trusted Contact:
- Now: the Trusted Contact gets access as soon as you grant it.
- Upon Incapacity: access is held back until a Status Verifier confirms incapacity and the Access Delay has elapsed (see Life status changes).
- After Passing: access is held back until a Status Verifier confirms the primary user has passed away and the Access Delay has elapsed (see Life status changes). Useful for items like a Direction Letter for an Executor or your Last Will & Testament.
You can choose to share information at any of these life stages.
The level of access: No Access, View Access, or Full Access
- Access is set at one of three levels per section in the Sharing & Permissions screen: No Access, View Access, or Full Access. No Access means the Trusted Contact cannot see this section at all. View Access means they can see but not change anything. Full Access means they can add, modify, or delete information in this section.
- View Access is the default. Your Trusted Contact has the information they need without the ability to change what's in your kit.
- Full Access is for the cases where you want a Trusted Contact helping maintain your kit alongside you: an adult child helping a parent fill things in, a spouse co-managing shared records, or an advisor updating items within their area of expertise.
- Access level is set per section per Trusted Contact, like everything else; the same Trusted Contact can have different access levels in different sections, and the level can change by stage (Now / Upon Incapacity / After Passing).
Legal key roles: predefined baselines plus custom layering
- When you assign someone a legal role (Executor, Power of Attorney for Property, Power of Attorney for Personal Care, Substitute Decision Maker (Medical)), Estate Kit applies a predefined permission baseline for that role. The baseline reflects what someone in that role typically needs to do their job.
- Legal-role baselines activate at the matching life status. Executor activates at confirmed passing. Power of Attorney for Property activates at confirmed financial incapacity (or both). Power of Attorney for Personal Care and Substitute Decision Maker (Medical) activate at confirmed personal-care incapacity (or both). Life status changes walks through the full five-status taxonomy and shows how each role's baseline switches on. Legal-role baselines track the specific scope of authority each role legally covers; custom permissions use the simpler three-stage model (Now / Upon Incapacity / After Passing) and activate at any incapacity.
- On top of the baseline, you can layer custom permissions, adding access (e.g., letting your Executor also see Pet Care Instructions). Custom permissions are additive only: you can grant more than the baseline, but you can't remove items from it. The baseline is a floor; whatever the legal role typically needs, the Trusted Contact gets at minimum.
- A single person can hold multiple roles. Someone can be a legal-key-role holder and have custom permissions layered on top, and be designated as a Status Verifier. The result is the union of all their access.
Revoking or changing what's shared
- Each Trusted Contact has a place where you can see and adjust everything they have access to.
- Revoking access ends it instantly. The Trusted Contact loses access server-side the moment you save the change.
- Note: revoking removes a Trusted Contact's ability to see something going forward; if they've already downloaded or copied an item, that's outside Estate Kit's control.
When Trusted Contacts have different views
Different Trusted Contacts can have completely different access. Your daughter can see one set of items, your son another, and neither of them sees the other's access. Each Trusted Contact's access is private to them. You decide independently for each person.
What your Trusted Contact sees on their side
- They see only the items you've granted to them.
- They get an email when you grant new access, with a secure link to sign in or set up a Trusted Contact login (at no cost; Trusted Contacts don't pay).
- While you are managing your own account, your Trusted Contacts cannot invite anyone else. After your passing, your Executor may have expanded capabilities for administering the estate, which can include bringing in additional people.
- For permissions set to Upon Incapacity or After Passing, the Trusted Contact sees nothing until the relevant life status is confirmed by your Status Verifier and the Access Delay has elapsed (see Life status changes).