Paperwork of deceased to keep, throw, shred

Aristarcus

Hi,

After clearing out the house of my parent who died earlier this year, I am going through the multiple bin bags of (paid) billls (some dated 1993!), bank account statements, council tax demands, MOT and tax for cars since scrapped, state pension statements etc.... I luckily found the fensa certificate for replacement windows buried in a pile.

I have been granted letters of administration and am the only beneficiary. In the process of selling their (unregistered) house, for which I have thankfully been able to locate the deeds; mortgage was paid off many decades ago.  All accounts but for a couple in one bank have been closed, all insurance monies have been paid, no private pensions.

I would greatly appreciate your thoughts on what paperwork I should look out for / keep, what I can throw away and what could be disposed of but would need to be shredded.

Thank you! 

lincroft1710

I personally shred any paperwork with name and address and all bank statements. You may want to keep any final bank/insurance statements and any paid invoices less than 6 years old.

elsien

I’d be buying an incinerator  and burning rather than shredding if there are large amounts to do. Much quicker.

user1977

Certainly no more than you would if it was your own paperwork.

Devongardener

elsien said:

I’d be buying an incinerator  and burning rather than shredding if there are large amounts to do. Much quicker.

I did exactly that when clearing my Mum’s house,  she had kept all her financial paperwork and that of her parents dating back decades, the incinerator sessions took many many days.  However it’s important to take time to check everything before burning, I found a lot of interesting family history I decided to keep.   I only kept current bank and investment documents once probate and IHT had been dealt with.

Savvy_Sue

Good spot on the FENSA certificate, and in carrying out the same task on my parents' house I found the original folder of 'stuff' from when they'd bought the place. That was very helpful, because I suspect that otherwise there would have been a bundle of unanswerable questions about the land behind the house, which gave access to several garages, including their own. We were able to demonstrate that the company who'd originally owned it had been dissolved long before my parents' purchase, and no-one else had taken on any responsibility for it.