Losing something as essential as legal documents can make our worst nightmare come true. We cannot even imagine losing legal papers and the unrest it will create in our lives. It would also be beneficial if you were careful when you choose how to manage and store your legal documents. When selecting your storage medium, you need to consider two aspects. Firstly, the security of the legal documents, and secondly, the accessibility of those documents. Both these aspects are equally important. Every family should have a family document organizer in place.
Access to your legal documents at any given time during the day or night is equally vital to its security. It is essential to keep a backup of all your legal documents too. If any of these crucial documents get misplaced or lost, replacing them will take time, effort, and money.
There are millions of fraud cases, a significant form of identity fraud, that the Federal Trade Commission reports in the country. So, keeping your legal documents storage secure and organized becomes all the more important to prevent security risks. You cannot just use a container to store important documents but plan to keep them effectively.
What is the best way to organize legal documents?
Legal documents need proper management as they contain sensitive information. It would be best if you dedicated time to secure document storage. You might not be using these documents regularly, but you need to store them properly to get them quickly whenever you need them. Not being able to find your necessary legal documents when you need them is a stressful thing. To avoid that stress, we briefly discuss the best way to organize legal documents below.
- Declutter
The first step to securing legal document storage is decluttering the papers and documents. It instantly reduces the quantity of paper. You will have to set time for it and shred off all the unnecessary paper irrelevant to you now.
- Keep the Relevant Paperwork
By decluttering, you can separate your legal documents from other documents and bills. Now you can sit down to properly organize your legal documents into separate files and folders as per requirement.
- The Necessary Items Needed
Now that you have all your legal papers in one place, you can use the following things to organize them. The necessary items are file folders, a label maker, a filing cabinet, and binders.
- Divide Into Categories
The legal documents must be sorted/divided and placed in separate files.
- Immediate Action
Place the documents and papers that need immediate action. These can include pending bills that have dues left.
- Essential Documents
The critical documents like your property papers, car papers, income tax papers, and birth and death certificates of family members should be appropriately filed and kept in a filing cabinet. You need these legal document categories maybe just once or twice a year.
- To Be Near
Keep original documents like your passport, IDs, driving licenses, bank account passbooks, and the likes in a handy place. It will be easy to locate them quickly. Keep copies of all such documents.
- Recycle
Recycle or shred the unimportant paper of the lot. These include outdated bills, credit card offers, and old bank statements.
What is the safest way to store documents?
There are two ways to store documents, either in the home or digitally. In the house, you can store all your necessary documents in a safe vault. If you are wondering how to keep important documents safe online, you can do it with appropriate storage digital tools.
Where do you store legal documents?
If you are wondering where to store your legal documents, you are not the only one. Handle the legal documents with care and store them securely.
There are many ways to do this. Few of them are-
- The Old-Fashioned Way You can store your legal documents in an old-fashioned way in bank lockers or safety vaults in your home. In this method, you can keep the original hard copy of the paper. But there is a disadvantage to it. You can lose these vital legal documents in the event of a natural disaster or a possibility of a fire.
- E-Lockers Nowadays, some companies offer e-lockers facilities. This service allows you to store soft copies of your essential legal documents easily. You can easily set up a user ID and password to operate the e-locker. The great advantage of using this facility is that you can access the legal documents at any time of the day or night you wish to, unlike with banks wherein you can only during operational hours. Store the records in PDF or JPG format. There will be annual fees to avail of this service with the company you choose.
- Personal Computer You can use your personal computer to store your important legal documents. You can scan the originals and store them in folders on your computer. You can make separate folders for each segment of legal documents. There is a disadvantage, though. If the computer crashes, you lose all saved data.
- Cloud Storage Presently, many companies use cloud storage. You can use services like Google documents and Dropbox. You need to register on the site. You will have a user ID and password and log in anytime. As and when you need it, you can scan your document and upload it. The services are free, which is an advantage. To be more secure, save your documents in password-protected PDFs.
How do you protect legal documents?
It is imperative to protect your legal documents. We mention a few ways of doing so below:
- Software and Cloud Services One of the easiest ways to protect your legal documents is to use the services of software and cloud services. These services are cost-effective. You can store password-protected PDFs in it. Also, their security features are well framed.
- Similar Files in One Folder If you use a digital filing system to store your documents, you must store them systematically. Keep similar types of documents in one folder. Doing so will make it easier for you to locate them when needed.
- Encryption You can easily protect your important and sensitive legal documents by encrypting them. It would help if you made a habit of locking down your file. Password-based encryption is the best way to do so.
- Backups Choose a backup solution to keep copies of all your essential legal documents. You can easily store them on your computers, e-lockers, or document management services. Please make sure they are password protected.
Clocr’s digital vault is an apt solution to store your digital belongings. They are pioneers in this field. The user can easily and securely store their digital valuables at Clocr.com.
How to keep important documents safe at home?
You can keep your important documents safe at home, either physically or digitally. Physically you can keep it in a secure vault. These vaults have a key or number combination to keep them locked. The ones available in the market nowadays are mostly fire-proof and water-proof. There is easy access to all the documents if you own a safe vault home. You can share the key or the number combination with a trusted person to use the secure vault in case of your death or you become incapacitated. Remember to protect your vital documents from accidental spills or wear and tear by placing them in plastic page slips and keeping them in a binder. Place this binder in the safe vault.
You can use the services of a digital vault for your digital assets. Clocr.com offers such services. According to statistics, the average person has over $50,000/- a value of digital assets. Hence, creating a separate vault for your digital belongings becomes necessary. These belongings can be hundreds of videos, photographs, and valuable documents like bank and property papers. The photographs and videos hold sentimental value; hence, people like to keep them in a safe place at home. A digital vault from Clocr helps you to keep your digital asset safe. Doing so, you also help to maintain and store them properly. You can easily track them when needed consequently.
Conclusion
Whether you store your essential legal documents physically or digitally, choose the most suitable and convenient method. Though holding them in your home keeps documents secure, fire or theft is always possible. With everything turning to digital means, storing legal documents in a digital format is becoming more common.
Clocr.com provides you with these services in the form of Clocr Digital Vault. It is a means of secure online storage for legal documents. Use the services offered by Clocr.com to store your legal documents safely online. Not only will you have all your digital assets consolidated in one place, but you can also track them quickly at a moment’s notice. You can store your digital assets at Clocr.com.
Along with these services, you can create your social media will on Clocr.com. According to the latest stats, an average individual has over 100 social media accounts. In the event of your death or in a situation of becoming incapacitated, Clocr.com will hand over your account details to the one you have nominated.
