How Long Do You Need to Keep Legal Documents?

Video transcription

You've recently decided to clear out your desk and the drawers in your desk where you have all types of documents and suddenly as you begin to shred the documents, it dawn on you, maybe you need to keep some of these documents. Hello, I'm Robert Todd and I'm here to answer the question, "How long do I need to keep legal documents?" Well, the first consideration is, is the legal document that you are considering shredding or discarding, does that document have a term certain. For example, a life insurance policy has a specific time during which a policy affords your beneficiary coverage for your life. If that policy has expired and it is of no effect, then, certainly that document can be discarded. But, a legal document such as a warranty deed to your house has no term certain and therefore when you go sell your house, you might want to have that warranty deed. So a general rule would be, legal documents that don't have term certain should be kept as long as you are alive. I'm Robert Todd and thank you for watching me.