Getting Access to Accounts of the Deceased



If an individual has passed away that had a DreamHost account and you need access to the content of their account, please fax, mail, or email us the following information:


 * 1. Your identification verification if you are the estate receiver (e.g. Driver license, photo ID card, Passport, etc).
 * 2. Either the WebID (username), email address or website name of the individual who passed away that you are trying to access.
 * 3. A copy of the death certificate of the deceased.
 * 4. A copy of the document that gives you Power of Attorney over the DreamHost account or estate receiver of the deceased.
 * 5. If the Dreamhost account owner was under the age of 18, please send us a copy of their Birth Certificate to verify age and to verify you are the parent of the individual, in this case, Power of Attorney is not required.

If you will be mailing in the above information please mail to this address

'''DreamHost Web Hosting Attn: Abuse Team

PMB #257 417 Associated Rd.

Brea, CA 92821 USA'''

(Please write your account number or email address on the top of all of your forms to easily identify them)

If you will be sending an email please send it to abuse@dreamhost.com (make all attachments either .jpg, .png, .gif, pdf)

The correct fax number is: 1 (714) 671-9098

Some Common questions you may have.

Q. What if I am not the estate receiver?

A. You will need to contact the estate receiver regarding providing you with access to the account or handing it over to you. You will need to have them contact us with the above information.

Q. The deceased and I were partners running this site, do I still need to provide the above information to gain access to the account?

A. No, if you have the login information that was given to you at one point you can continue to access the account but will want to change the contact information for the account. If you do not have the account login information but can verify that you have paid for the account or can verify that you own the account please contact our support staff so that we can verify this information for you.

'''Q. The deceased was my web developer and has my website, but I have the Website Registration (Website name) what can I do. '''

A. There are 2 things you can do here: (please note that these are general outlines of possible scenarios.) 1. contact your web developers estate receiver, if they have not contacted us yet to gain access have them submit the above information to us. If they do have access to the account, they will need to provide you with access to the account or if they are in the position, they can continue your service. This is up to the estate receiver. 2. Being that you own your website name you have control of where you point it to, you can purchase hosting at another company and point your Registration to that new hosting company. If you would like to stay here with DreamHost you can request to have the domain removed from your web developer's account so that you can  add it to your new account that you will sign up for. However, doing this will not provide you access to the website files as they would be within the deceased's account which you would need to either gain permission or be given access to the account from the estate receiver.

Q. The deceased was my web developer and has my website and my Website Registration (Website name) what can I do.

A. If the Registration's "whois" displays your contact information with a verifiable email address then the registration is yours and you can choose to have it moved to your own new account that you will have to sign up for. If the "whois" information does not have your contact information we will not be able to release the name to you, at this pint we will only be able to release the name to the verified estate receiver and you will need to gain access from them.

Q. What if I don't know who the estate receiver is or have the contact information for them but my website is on that account?

A. in this case just contact our support staff and we will try and contact the estate receiver using the accounts contact information. If this proves unsuccessful, you can always buy a new name and start over with your website, wait for the name to expire and become available for public purchase again, or seek legal counsel on how to obtain access to the files.

Q. I have an account here at Dreamhost but would like to take action to ensure in case of an event where I no longer can access my account someone else will be able to, does Dreamhost provide this type of feature.

A. Yes, There are 2 things that we can offer here, you can simply add additional email addresses to your DreamHost Web ID "Contact Info" page, then if the day comes that they need to access your account, they just need to write in from either of those addresses and ask for account access. In other words: Today you go to http://dreamhost.com/ , log in to the Panel, click "Edit Profile" then "Contact Info" at the top. Then scroll down to the "Your Email Contact Preferences" section. Then -- next to "Emails go to:", with your email address in the first box, a second box says "add one here" -- type in your friend's email address, then hit the "Submit New Email Contact" button to save it. You can add any number of alternate email addresses, one at a time -- after you save the address in the second box, DreamHost shows both addresses plus a third "add one here" box.

You can also give us special instructions on who is to be given access to your account in case of your death, We will then place these instructions on your account internal note system. (e.g. I would like my sister, Jane Doe [janed25@hersite.com or 1(909)123-4567] to be given access to my account upon her sending in my Death certificate.)

You can also use third party sites that offer this type of service, here are some we found Legacylocker.com, Vitallock.com, [http://www.legalzoom.com/sem/last-will-and-testament.html? LegalZoom.com], or Deathswitch.com