Secure storage of documents

To answer your last question. If you were a burglar and you saw a safe in a house would you think there was something valuable locked in it? If so what would you do?

You have been watching too much hollywood. A typical burglar wants a quick "in and out".

If they arent valuable except to you (which I take to mean sentimental value) why expect any compensation, what would the point of that be? If they are documents, photocopy them with high fidelity and store the copies somewhere else. If they are small objects get a fire safe.

At the end of the day they are only paper and documents, ie they can be replaced or lost without real harm. There are currently at least 500,000 people who I bet would trade a bit of paper or an object, for a loved one.

How do you know theyre not really important (even if it is just to him)

That last bit makes no sense...or doesnt really mean much..

Some of the items are original documents which would be troublesome and expensive to replace (ie valuable to me but not particularly to anyone else). There are also some small items of moderate financial value but of greater sentimental value.

The point is, if I am paying someone to securely store some items which I consider important (for whatever reason) and one of the first things they tell me is that they won't be held in any way 1responsible if they don't manage to keep it safe - what am I supposed to think? I haven't looked at the T&C's but it probably excludes liability if they lose or damage the items as well.

Give us a break. Life goes on.

Stunning fractal photographs

It depends on what type of fire safe you get. Some are small enough to pick up and run away with. Others are designed to be installed in a floor, under the carpet.

Any reasonable fire safe capable of holding A4 documents is going to be rather large, but ultimately much cheaper than a safety deposit box.

However, a client of mine discovered that in a fire they may not protect dcouments. They had a policy of putting important documents into a fire safe, when the building burned down everything in the fire safe was carbonised. Documents stored in a chipboard cupboard with a close-fitting door were saved. The fire brigade officer explained that chipboard is quite resistant to fire and that as it burns the gasses evolved have a slight cooling effect which means documents last for longer than one would expect before combusting.

OTOH fire safes come with a claim that they will keep documents safe for a defined period (usually 20 minutes) which doesn't sound long enough to me.

Well our neighbour was done over last summer and couldn't understand why all his carpets had been ripped at the corners. Local police said it was quite common as thieves now look for underfloor safes.

Sentimental value means exactly that, no point in expecting financial recompense.

Because their liability may be out of kilter compared to the fees they get for storing, it probably wouldnt be a profitable enterprise for them. If you were prepared to pay enough, you would find someone who would store it, however I suspect you then wouldnt want to pay that much. Its not just them of course, they7'd also have to persuade an insurance company that a bit of paper was worth (say) 500.

Put it in the loft? No burglar would be able to discover anything in the junk there, if its anything like mine.

"Steve Firth" wrote

Well, in that case - the obvious question is: "Why aren't fire safes made out of chipboard?" !!

Maybe it should be "Why wasn't the fire-proof safe put inside a chipboard cupboard?"

Seems fair enough. There has to be a log maintained of the items in the safe as well as a liability for loss. Most important of all is the amount of space taken up. On its own, it may not be much but can you imagine what

10,000 similar envelopes?

DD

securely. These

25 quid seems more than fair, lets face it the chance of your local bank getting burnt down or burgled are pretty slim to the chances of your house meeting a similar fate.

A decent fire safe will cost many times what the TSB are charging and a burglar will probably make the effort to take it with him or come back for it at a later date.

Peter

Bitstring , from the wonderful person Terry Harper said

Actually all the fire safes I've seen have been exactly that, but backwards - a wooden (possibly not chipboard, I didn't actually assay it) box inside a hoofing great thick steel shell... The outer shell keeps the burglars away (and makes it impossible to lift without a crane) and the wooden box does the (final) insulating. Never had one come through a fire, but I've seen the pictures, and it seemed to work right. Trouble is that you have an 8 CuFt, half ton, steel safe, containing about 1 CuFt of usable storage.

Having 20:20 hindsight is not a gift worth having.

Ignoring the experience of others is also a recipe for failure.

In message , anon wrote

With my £100 fire safe a burglar would have a lot of trouble removing as it bolted it down from the inside as recommended - it is also rather heavy on it's own.

The job of a fire safe is to keep the documents safe in the event of a fire but not necessarily safe from a determined burglar. My guess is that it wouldn't take much to open the safe by brute force (maybe using a drill).

Once open what is the burglar likely to take - paperwork or easily disposable items that are worth money?

Clearly there would have to be some limit on the liability, maybe a few thousand pounds (the value of someting you might reasonably entrust to your local bank).

But I think you are missing the point. Suppose you went into a restaurant and the first thing they wanted you to do was to sign a form agreeing that they would not be liable if the meal gave you food poisoning. Would you eat there? I wouldn't. It is the restaurants responsibility to make sure the food is fit to eat, it is out of my control. I would wonder why they wanted me to sign - do they have a lot of cases of food poisoning? I would also think that, having signed, they would be even less careful because they have no liability.

This has nothing to do with the amount of compensation or the way it is calculated, it is just logical, reasonable suspicion about why the restaurant are so keen to avoid having to pay it. If the restaurant think it is too risky to cover the risk of me getting food poisoning (and they should know), then why would I want to eat there?

Same with the bank. If they apparantly think the risk of my envelope coming to harm is too great for them to be able to take responsibility, then how can I trust them with it.

It seems that the risk of fire or theft should be pretty tiny. Maybe there are other risks, perhaps they are worried about items being lost or damaged accidentally.

Dom

Stunning fractal photographs

In message , anon wrote

Yes....

Try the Royal Bank of Scotland, Southend-on-Sea branch. You may get the service for free as they bill, at random, other customers for looking after your valuables.