Paperwork - how long should you keep it ?

richardvc

After spending the most boring afternoon going through the mounds of paperwork that seem to run my life, I got thinking 'how long do I need to keep all this rubbish ?'

ie bank statements, mortgage stuff from a property I sold five years ago, payslips and P60s, account paperwork ie Next, all my debt stuff showing that some are now paid up and so on.....

Is there a legal requirement ? I have heard someone mention seven years before but have never really known for sure.

I now have two brimming boxes in the loft doing nothing and serving no purpose whatsoever but would hate there to be a problem and find that I had lobbed all the relevant paperwork.

I await your advice !;)

immoral_angeluk

If you have the room you should ideally keep things for 6 years.. in practice this is impossible so I tend to keep the important things like wage slips, p45s, anything to do with tax credits or the inland revenue... bank statements etc I keep for about 6 months.

GeorgeUK

Bank accounts are not so important and i agree that about 6 months is plenty. I keep mine for about 2 years though. If you need to look at transactions older than that you can send a subject access request to request the data.

DarkConvict

Ive still got the receipt to the first game i brought Age of Empires in 1997

I have alot of statements i do not need, but i do have space to store them. I used a big black metal case from a stationary shop usually £20 i got it 1/2 price. Phone bills, statements, meaningful recipts, all stored. Generally if its older than 6 years it can go, but somethings you may wish to keep longer like mortgage documents (obviously the deed you keep forever).

If space is an issue, there is another solution my flat mate and Neighbour use.
Flat mate, uses a scanner and scans them all in, then shreds the original (unless its official document like a P45)
Neighbour does the same, but faxes it to himself as his fax machine is setup to an online storage account, so everything is stored and logged there instead of on his machine.