Legal Documents and Personal Records Storage

When deciding how to store legal documents and personal records, you should carefully consider your options. There are two aspects to consider: security vs emergency access. Both are vital, but individuals often prioritize security above convenience of access, which may present severe issues when a legal document is required right away.

Here are the four most common methods for storing legal documents:

Security Deposit Box

A safety deposit box is a fire-resistant metal box that you may rent from your bank.

Level of security: This is a very safe location for valuable objects such as ancestral jewelry or your stamp collection, as well as crucial papers such as your birth certificate. Even if they have a key, the bank limits who may access your box. Typically, anybody who gains access to your box must be a co-renter on the bank’s rental agreement or have been authorized as your agent – which must be attested by a bank official.
Simple access: Because of the design of the safety deposit box, you and others cannot readily access the contents – it is impossible for anyone to open the box during non-banking hours, and it is very difficult for anybody other than you to access the contents. This may be an issue if you become disabled and a family member need access to your living will or health care power of attorney paperwork in an emergency. It is especially difficult if you are traveling and require these papers.

Home Filing Cabinet

A metal file cabinet that almost everyone has at home and can be purchased at any office supply shop.

Level of security: Your home file cabinet is most likely the least secure location for your legal papers. Your papers are only as secure as the lock on your front door or (if you have one) home security system. Furthermore, your documents are vulnerable to potential disasters such as fires or floods.
Accessibility: In an emergency, anybody with a key to your front door may access your papers as long as they know where to look in your house. Of course, a criminal who steals into your home may simply have access to them.

A Residence Safe

A tiny fire-proof safe that can be closed with a key or a combination and stored in your house may be bought for less than $100.

Security level: A home fire-proof safe falls in between an exceptionally secure safety deposit box and a somewhat insecure and dangerous home file cabinet. It is incredibly secure as long as your house safe is locked down or concealed someplace a thief can not readily discover it.
Simple access: In general, a home safe is a decent balance between security and convenience. You may share the location and the combination with someone else, making it available to you or someone else at any time. In case you become disabled, you must still share a key or the combination with someone you trust. As a result, preserving vital original papers in a home fire-safe or fire-box is a suitable alternative, particularly if they need to be accessible in an emergency or on short notice.

Document Storage Online

Online document storage enables you to save digital copies of your legal papers online, which you may access with a username and password from any computer, at any time.

Level of Security: Online document storage is quite secure. Your legal papers can only be viewed by you or those you have shared them with. Of course, use a difficult-to-guess password to safeguard your papers.
Accessibility: Online document storage is an excellent method to securely communicate legal papers. You may share your papers with anybody who has an email account, and you can access them from anywhere – at work, on vacation, or in an emergency in an internet café down the street from the hospital. It is also a fantastic technique to back up tangible legal documents that are kept in a home safe. Most crucially, if you become incapacitated, the appropriate persons (with whom you have shared your legal papers online) will have access to your living will, health care directive, power of attorney, and other documents. Nobody needs to struggle for a key, hunt for your concealed safe, or be in the terrible circumstance of requiring crucial legal papers housed in an inaccessible safety deposit box on a Saturday.