What happens to a shared vault if the person who shared it stops sharing?

Hi TheMacMommy​! Thanks for writing in. These are great questions, and some important topics to be thinking about. 

A number of your questions touch on the topic of estate planning. To start off, I wanted to share our blog discussing estate planning, as well as a guide we've made available.

For broad strokes, if you'd like trusted family or friends to have access to your data in case of death or illness you can prepare an Emergency Kit to be included with a will, or stored in a secure location that's accessible to them. If you'd like trusted family or friends to be able to manage a 1Password Families account, but not have access to your data you can add members as family organizers. 

It's important to note here that everyone's situation is unique, so please let us know if we can cover any specifics or help get into an edge case. 

What happens to a vault of items being shared between two people if the vault's owner should suddenly stop using 1Password for Families? (in the case of stroke, death, cognitive decline...)

If a family organizer stops using 1Password due to illness or death the family account will remain active until the end of the current billing cycle. If their payment method is still active and attached to the family account it would be renewed automatically. If the account's subscription is not renewed the account will become frozen for all members. Frozen accounts have limited usability but saved data would remain secure and accessible to the respective members. 

If a family member stops using 1Password due to illness or death their account will remain active as long as the family account is active, and their account isn't removed by the family organizer. 

In either case, items in shared vaults could be moved or copied to a new or existing vault owned by active members of the family account. Depending on the access level to a shared vault, active family members can also grant or revoke access without the need to move items. 

What if the owner or their heirs don't know how or want to continue with 1Password after payments cease?

As mentioned above, after payments cease the family account would become frozen. If there was only one family organizer on the account and the remaining family members don't have access to that person's 1Password account, there will be no way to resume the subscription. In that case one of the remaining family members could open a new family account, invite the other active members, then everyone could move or copy their data over to the new account. Family members could also move their data to an individual account with the same method.

If there were multiple family organizers, an active family organizer could add a new payment method to the account to maintain the subscription. 

If the owner or its heirs decide to close out the 1Password account and request data to be removed, are other vault participants notified with an advance directive?

A family organizer can choose to delete the 1Password Families account, or remove individual members without notifying them. Depending on how it was done, this could also be the case if they moved to another password manager, or switched to an individual account which you mentioned in a previous question. You can however migrate data without deleting your 1Password account, and a family account can only be switched to an individual account if there is one member on the account. 

I'm wondering what is the protocol for retaining or taking ownership of the items in that shared vault should my friend no longer be able to administrate their family account?

This would depend on if you're a guest on your friend's account or if you're a family member.

If you're a guest the best option would likely be to move or copy the items into a vault that you own in your account. You, depending on your permissions as a guest, or your friend could then archive or delete the items in the vault, or your friend could delete the vault in question (this deletes the vault and all items saved within).

If you're a family member in your friend's account they could instead ensure you have full access to the vault, then remove themselves from it by managing access.