Safekeeping Your Estate Planning Documents — Updated August, 2022

Completing your estate plan is a great accomplishment, but the fun’s not over just yet – now you have to decide where to keep the papers for the rest of your life. Generally, you have four options for safekeeping your estate planning documents:

Your Lawyer’s Office

Traditionally, lawyers would keep and store their clients’ documents since they already had the means to safeguard confidential paper files. However, this is becoming less common as many offices are going paperless. Some attorneys still offer this service because, by keeping the originals, the lawyer would be conveniently placed in the best position for future estate planning and probate work. In other words, the only way to get the originals would be to have the client (or if deceased, the clients heirs) contact the lawyer, which then gives the lawyer an opportunity for more business.

This brings up a series of issues:

(a) what if the lawyer changes location, becomes incapacitated, or dies?

(b) what if the client fails to tell his executor or alternate where the documents are being held (or they simply forget)?

(c) what if you decide you want to update your estate planning, but would prefer to go with a different lawyer?

As silly as the last reason sounds, it’s not uncommon for clients to drag their feet in updating their estate plan because they don’t want to have that awkward conversation with their former estate planning attorney.

2. The Court

Although uncommon, Massachusetts does allow you to file your Will with the court while you are still living. You fill out some paperwork, pay a small fee (currently around $75), and the court will keep your Will safe until notified of your death.

If you don’t mind going to the court to file your Will (and going back if you update it) then this option may work for you.

On a side note: although the documents are already in the court’s possession, your personal representative will still need to file the Will for probate so make sure you let him or her know where it is located.

3. Your Home

You may have noticed that the first two options don’t entirely solve your problem because you still need a safe place to put your Health Care Proxy and Power of Attorney. Plus, you need to make sure that both documents are easily accessible and having a third party hold either could cause unnecessary delays.

For that reason, the most popular option is to get a fire-proof / waterproof safe (available at your local office supply store or amazon) and keep the originals in your home. I’ve heard of clients opting to put their documents in the refrigerator, but I wouldn’t recommend putting legal documents next to your frozen pizza.

When this article was originally written (pre-Covid), having the hard copy original documents used to be almost required to avoid hassle in convincing third parties (e.g., banks or whoever needed to see the documents) that the documents were legitimate. However, now that everyone is used to working remotely and doing everything online (even the government), it has become less of an issue in needing to find and locate hard copy originals. In other words, although it's a best practice to use originals when working with third-parties, electronic copies often do the trick now.

The Will is the one thing where having the original is much more important than an electronic copy. That part hasn’t changed (yet).

Lastly, in case you were curious, safe deposit boxes at banks are generally not recommended as a first choice for storage options due to their lack of accessibility. That is because the persons you’ve named in your documents may not be authorized to access the safe deposit box. That’s a problem.

So, if you do have a safe deposit box and plan on using it to hold your originals, then please make sure someone besides you has legal access to it (and knows where it is located).

Regardless of where you end up deciding to store your documents, you should inform your loved ones or named beneficiaries where they are. If your safe needs a code or a key to get into, you should also give them a spare or tell them where you keep it so they are able to access it when the time comes.

4. Online Storage

Some people prefer to have multiple copies of their estate plans in different places. Storing your estate planning documents online is a good alternative option. Do your research thoroughly to make sure you are not getting scammed, but websites like DropBox, Google Drive, Microsoft One Drive, Apple iCloud, or on a USB Drive are sufficient for most people. If you enable two-factor authentication, make sure someone has access to your smartphone or primary email to access these online storage devices.

FAQ:

How do my kids find my passwords if something happens to me?