The short version: keep identity and ownership papers — birth and marriage certificates, wills, title deeds — forever. Keep anything supporting a tax return for five years from the date you lodge it. Keep records for property and shares as long as you own the asset, plus five years. Keep insurance, warranties and loan papers while they're live. Matched ATM slips, old utility bills and superseded copies are safe to shred today.
Everyone tells you to "keep your important documents." Nobody tells you which ones, for how long, or when it's finally safe to let go. So one of two things happens.
Either you keep everything — a drawer, then a box, then a second box, a decade of phone bills filed next to your birth certificate, and when you actually need the car insurance you can't find it under all the paper you were too unsure to throw out. Or you have a clear-out, feel great, and eight months later the ATO asks about a deduction, or you go to sell the house, or you make an insurance claim — and the one record that would have settled it in thirty seconds is gone.
Both are the same mistake: treating this as a storage problem. It isn't. Storage is cheap and nearly infinite. The problem is knowing what each piece of paper is for, how long that job lasts, and being able to find it the moment the job comes due.
So here's the household version — what to keep, how long to keep it, and what you can shred today without a second thought.
The trick: every document has a job and an expiry
A document isn't worth keeping because it's "official." It's worth keeping because some future question might need it as the answer — "can I prove I paid for this?", "what did the policy actually cover?", "what was the cost base when I bought the shares?" When no future question can possibly need it, it's not a record any more. It's just paper.
That reframe does two things. It gives you permission to throw a lot away (most of what's in the drawer has no live question attached to it). And it tells you exactly how long to keep the rest: until the last question it could answer has passed.
Group your documents by how long that is, not by what they look like.
Keep forever
These prove who you are, what you own, and what you've decided. There's no expiry — losing them is genuinely painful and replacing them is slow.
- Birth, marriage, and citizenship certificates; passports (current)
- Wills, powers of attorney, advance care directives — and know where the signed originals physically are
- Property title deeds and your conveyancing/settlement papers
- Death certificates and probate documents for anyone whose estate you've handled
- Qualifications, professional registrations, and the like
Keep for 5 years (anything tax-related)
The working rule from the ATO: keep records that support what's in a tax return for five years from the date you lodge that return. If a record explains income you declared or a deduction you claimed, it's in this bucket.
- Lodged tax returns and notices of assessment
- Payment summaries / income statements, payslips
- Receipts and invoices for anything you've claimed (work expenses, donations, etc.)
- Bank and investment statements that show taxable income or deductible interest
- Records for rental properties (a landlord's whole expense trail)
Note the clock starts at lodgement, not the income year — and if you're mid-dispute or amending, keep them longer. (If you run a business or have complex affairs, the period can be longer; that's a question for your accountant.)
Keep as long as you own it — plus five years
Some records aren't done when the tax year ends; they're done when you sell the thing and the capital-gains dust settles. For these, keep everything for as long as you own the asset, then five more years.
- Property: the purchase contract, conveyancing, and every record of capital improvements (the new kitchen, the deck, the re-stumping). These set your cost base and can save you real money in capital-gains tax years or decades later.
- Shares and managed funds: contract notes, dividend and DRP statements, corporate-action paperwork — the cost-base trail.
- Major renovations: builder contracts, certificates, and warranties for structural work.
This is the bucket people throw out too early, because the "job" is so far in the future they forget it exists.
Keep while it's live
Keep these for as long as they're current or could still be called on, then let them go.
- Insurance policies: the current policy schedule and PDS, plus anything tied to an open or possible claim. Last year's superseded schedule can go.
- Warranties and proof of purchase: for the life of the item. Under Australian Consumer Law your receipt is your proof for a "reasonable" lifespan, which for a dishwasher or a laptop is years beyond the printed warranty — so keep the receipt with the manual.
- Vehicles: registration, the purchase paperwork, and the service history for as long as you own it (service history also helps at resale).
- Loan and mortgage documents: while the loan exists, plus a while after it's discharged.
- Guarantees, contracts, and memberships: while they're in force.
Safe to shred today
If you're keeping these, you're keeping paper, not records:
- ATM and EFTPOS slips once they've matched your statement
- Utility and phone bills with nothing tax-related on them (a year is plenty if you ever need proof of address)
- Superseded versions of anything you've kept the current copy of
- Junk that looks official — marketing dressed up as a statement
Shred anything with account numbers, your signature, or identity details rather than binning it whole.
Take the paper version with you.
One A4 page to fill in by hand — where things are and who to call, never the secrets themselves. We’re building the software version; leave your email and we’ll send you the map now, and one note when it’s ready.
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The part that actually fails: finding it
Here's the uncomfortable truth. You can follow every line above, keep exactly the right documents for exactly the right time, and still fail — because a perfectly-kept box you can't search is no better than a lost one. The warranty isn't gone; its meaning is, the day you can't locate it in the ninety seconds before the repairer's call ends.
A genuinely useful household record needs three things a drawer can't give you:
- One place, so "where's the…" has a single answer.
- Findable by the question you'll actually ask — "the car insurance," "the deed," "the fridge receipt" — not by which year you happened to file it.
- A clock that watches the expiries for you — what renews next month, what's safe to shred now — so the pile never silently rots back into the drawer.
You can do this with good folders and a calendar, and if that's where you are, start today. But keeping it tidy and current by hand is exactly the part that quietly stops happening.
What we're building for this
That's what Hovenly Papers is for. You photograph a document once; it reads what it is, files it by type, and keeps the original safe. You find things by asking the obvious question, not by remembering where you put them. And the dates that matter — a policy renewal, a rego, a warranty about to lapse — surface in time, instead of expiring silently in a drawer.
Papers is in build now. If the drawer-you-can't-search is a problem you recognise, you can reserve a founding place — no charge until it's actually in your hands, leave any time. Founding members lock the founding price and help shape what gets built.
This is a practical household guide, not tax, legal, or financial advice. Australian record-keeping rules — especially the ATO's — depend on your circumstances and change over time; check the current ATO guidance or your accountant for anything that affects a return. When in doubt, keep it: storage is cheap, and a record you didn't need beats a question you can't answer.