What happens to an Airtable account when someone dies
Formagrid publishes no process specific to a deceased person's account; a written request goes by email to legal@airtable.com.
Formagrid decides what happens to an Airtable account after a death case by case; its terms promise no transfer.
Formagrid publishes no process specific to a deceased person's account; a written request goes by email to legal@airtable.com. The request takes 5 documents.
How to request a transfer
- •They make the change using their own account.
- •The workspace owner owns every base and interface in it.
- •This route is open only when the workspace is on an Enterprise Scale or Business plan.
- •The admin grants Owner permissions to an active collaborator from the admin panel's Workspaces tab.
- •The account holder's name and the email address on the Airtable account.
- •The names of the workspaces or bases involved.
- •The death certificate and letters testamentary or letters of administration.
- •Download the attachments from the CSV links within 2 hours, before the URLs expire.
- •Deleting the account does not delete workspaces and bases shared with other people.
Required Documents
- The account holder's name and the email address on the Airtable account
- Name of the workspace and bases involved: With the plan they sit on: Free, Team, Business or Enterprise Scale.
- Death certificate
- Documentation of authority to act for the estate: For example, letters testamentary or letters of administration.
- The billing detail: if charges are continuing. The card's last four digits and the workspace the payment method is attached to.
Timeline
Promoting a new workspace owner takes effect immediately when a surviving collaborator already has access, and an Enterprise Scale or Business admin can reassign a workspace at once.
What Formagrid, Inc. (Airtable)'s terms say at death
- 22.1 (Assignment)
“These Terms, and any rights and licenses granted hereunder, may not be transferred or assigned by you without our prior express written consent, but may be assigned by us without restriction.”1
What Formagrid, Inc. (Airtable) says happens7
- Who owns the asset
A collaborator who already holds access sets another collaborator's permission to Owner from the workspace Share dialog, under their own account. Moving a base to another workspace transfers its ownership to that workspace's owner.2
On Enterprise Scale and Business plans an account admin can grant Owner permissions to an active collaborator from the admin panel, and Enterprise admins can transfer ownership of bases previously owned by now-deactivated users.3
Workspaces not attached to an Enterprise Scale or Business plan cannot be managed in the admin panel, so a personal Free or Team account has no admin route.3
- How requests are reviewed
For privacy and security reasons, Airtable Support is unable to remove previous workspace owners or add new owners to workspaces.3
- Subscriptions and billing
Airtable bills per workspace rather than per account, and the card used for a workspace's billing keeps being charged even after a complete ownership transfer, until the new owner updates the payment method.4
Where a billing method is attached to a workspace and the person can no longer manage workspace settings because they do not hold owner permissions, Airtable says Support may be able to assist.3
- Closing the account
Airtable's account deletion flow runs from inside the account holder's own account overview, so an estate asks Airtable in writing to close the account.4
- Deletion and data retention
Deleting an account does not delete workspaces and bases that are shared with other people.4
- Continuing a shop, channel or listing
A native automation's failure notifications go to the workspace's deactivated Owner until a new collaborator toggles it off and on again, and external or integrated automations fail when an Owner's account is deactivated.3
Synced tables created by a deactivated Owner stop updating while the base and workflow schema remain intact. A new owner reconnects a native sync by reactivating it and may need to rebuild external automations.3
- Passwords and login
Airtable's documented support route, "Message support" under the question mark icon on the home screen, starts inside a signed-in Airtable session, which an estate cannot use without the deceased's credentials.5
Not in Airtable's published guidance6
- A process for a deceased account holder
- A phone number for this
- A complete list of the documents to send
- A turnaround for a written request about a deceased sole owner
- A commitment to preserve a deceased owner's workspaces
- A channel for disclosing base contents to a third party
Sources5
A written request to Formagrid can ask it to disclose a record of the account’s communications, preserve the account while the estate is opened and close the account.
Digital Assets Recovery Letter for Airtable drafts that request from the estate's details.
Sources
Data sourced from Formagrid, Inc. (Airtable) primary sources (7 pages reviewed). How we research.
Airtable estate claims
Airtable legal contact (Formagrid, Inc.)
Website
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Forms for Settling an Estate
Free forms for settling an estate: the probate petition, small estate affidavit, notice to creditors, inventory, and closing forms.
Affidavit of Death
Put a joint owner's or a transfer on death deed owner's death on the land records with the affidavit your state's statute names, laid out for recording.
IRS Form 56
Notify the IRS that you are the fiduciary of an estate, a trust or a person, or end a notice filed before, on the official form.
Digital Assets Recovery Letter
Prepare a letter requesting a deceased person's online accounts, points, and balances from the program that holds them.
Petition for Probate and Letters
Open probate and ask the court to appoint you and issue Letters Testamentary or Letters of Administration.
Notice to Creditors
Notify estate creditors and start the claim period — the published notice plus mailed copies for known creditors.
Renunciation of Executor
Decline an appointment as executor named in a will — the writing filed with the court before anyone is appointed.
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