What documents should you keep, and for how long?
Keep everything forever and you drown. Shred too eagerly and something important vanishes. Here are rough rules for what stays, what goes, and where it lives.
Keep forever
A short, constant list of documents you will always need:
- Birth, marriage and divorce certificates
- Property deeds - until the property is sold, then pass them on
- Your signed will, and any updates to it
- Registered Lasting Powers of Attorney
- Share certificates, while you hold the shares
- Pensions paperwork, including old workplace schemes - billions sit in lost pots precisely because this paperwork went missing decades ago
Keep while it matters
For anything tied to a live policy or agreement, keep it for its lifetime plus a year:
- Insurance policies of every kind
- Mortgage statements and tenancy agreements
- Car finance and warranty documents
- Utility bills and council tax - a year is plenty unless you are disputing something
- Payslips, until the P60 arrives - then the P60s cover you
Tax records: the six-year rule
If you complete a self-assessment tax return, HMRC expects you to keep the records behind it for six years from the end of the tax year. The same six-year horizon is a sensible default for anything money-related that could be questioned later: keep it, date it, and let old years go on a rolling basis.
Shred without guilt
If nobody would pay, claim or decide anything based on it, let it go. Clutter is the enemy of the important stuff being found:
- Marketing mail and expired coupons
- Old takeaway menus stapled to nothing
- Instruction manuals for appliances you no longer own
- Bank statements from years back with nothing disputed on them
Where to keep it all
Paper originals that matter belong in one folder or fire-safe box, in a place a few trusted people know about. Everything else can live digitally - photographed or uploaded into your Wiseplan, where automated text extraction reads the key details and each record sits alongside the account it belongs to. Whatever system you choose, apply the real test: could your partner or executor find any of it, right now, without calling you?
Common questions
How long should I keep bank statements?
For everyday purposes, a year or so of statements is plenty - and most banks now keep several years available online. Keep statements relating to anything disputed, or to tax, for six years.
Paper or digital - which is better?
Digital copies are fine for almost everything, provided they are readable and backed up. The exceptions are documents where an original matters: property deeds, share certificates, and your signed will and LPA documents.
What should my executor be able to find on day one?
The will, a list of accounts and policies, recent tax records, property documents, and your digital inventory. Our complete checklist covers the full picture.
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