The important documents to keep at home fall into nine groups: identity, property, finance, insurance, medical, family records, education and employment, vehicle, and digital accounts. Keep the originals in one physical place, keep scans in one private digital place, and make sure at least one other adult in the family knows where both are. The test of a good system is not whether you can find a paper, but whether your spouse, parent or child could find it without you.
This checklist is written for an Indian household. For each category it lists what to keep, why the family (not just you) may need it, and who should know where it is. It ends with originals versus copies, DigiLocker, a printable table, and where to keep the scans.
- Nine categories, roughly 35 documents. Most families already have them, in six different places.
- Rule of two: one physical folder for originals, one private digital folder for scans, and one other adult who knows where both are.
- Nominee records and the legal heir certificate are the papers families most often discover they need and cannot find.
- DigiLocker holds government-issued documents in digital form; scans of everything else still need a home.
- The FamRoot Vault: 1 GB free per user. A private place for family documents is planned. Not a legal registry; keep originals.
Which documents should every Indian family keep?
1. Identity
Keep: Aadhaar, PAN, passport, voter ID, birth certificates for every member, and ration card if you have one.
Why the family needs it: Nearly every claim, transfer or application after a death or during an illness starts with the identity documents of the person concerned, and often of the person applying.
Who should know where: Both spouses, and one adult child if there is one. Check that the mobile number linked to each Aadhaar is one that still works.
2. Property
Keep: Sale deed (or gift or partition deed), patta or khata, encumbrance certificate (EC), property tax receipts, approved building plan, allotment letter for flats, and society share certificate.
Why the family needs it: Property is the asset families most often cannot sell because one paper is missing. An EC shows the property is unencumbered; tax receipts prove continuous possession. Without the original sale deed, a transfer or a loan against the property becomes slow and expensive.
Who should know where: The owner, the spouse, and the person who would inherit. If the deed is in a bank locker, the locker number and the key's location belong on the same list.
3. Finance
Keep: A list of all bank accounts, fixed deposit receipts, PPF passbook, demat and mutual fund folio details, loan agreements and closure letters, EPF records, and, above all, nominee records for each account and investment.
Why the family needs it: Money that nobody knows about stays unclaimed. A family without nominee records may need a succession certificate before it can claim anything. Loan closure letters stop a settled loan being chased again.
Who should know where: The spouse and the named nominee. The nominee should know they are the nominee.
4. Insurance
Keep: Life, health, vehicle and home insurance policies with policy numbers, premium dates and the insurer's claim contact.
Why the family needs it: A life policy is only worth something if the family knows it exists and files the claim. Health insurance is needed at the hospital counter, usually at 2 am, by whoever is there.
Who should know where: Everyone who might reach a hospital first: spouse, adult children, and one trusted relative nearby.
5. Medical
Keep: Blood group for every member, current prescriptions, allergies, chronic conditions, recent reports and discharge summaries, children's vaccination records, and the family doctor's number.
Why the family needs it: In an emergency, the person who can speak is often not the patient. A one-page medical summary per member saves time that matters.
Who should know where: Every adult in the household.
6. Family records
Keep: Marriage certificate, death certificates of parents and grandparents, legal heir certificate or succession certificate where one has been issued, the will (and the name of the executor and where the signed original is), adoption papers, and any family settlement or partition document.
Why the family needs it: These papers prove who is related to whom and who is entitled to what. A legal heir certificate is routinely asked for when transferring a deceased parent's bank account, pension or property. A will nobody can find is the same as no will.
Who should know where: All adult children and the spouse. If there is a will, the executor must know where the original is.
7. Education and employment
Keep: Class 10 and 12 mark sheets, degree certificates, professional registrations, appointment and relieving letters, Form 16 and income tax returns for the last few years.
Why the family needs it: Jobs, visas, loans and pension claims. Tax returns are often asked for in a family member's loan or visa application too.
Who should know where: The person and one other adult.
8. Vehicle
Keep: Registration certificate (RC), insurance, pollution certificate, driving licences, loan hypothecation removal letter once paid off.
Why the family needs it: Transferring a vehicle after a death is a common, avoidable headache. The hypothecation letter is the one most often missing.
Who should know where: Everyone who drives the vehicle.
9. Digital accounts
Keep: A list of the email addresses, phone numbers, banking and UPI apps, investment platforms and social accounts each person uses, and how a trusted person can reach them. Not the passwords on a loose sheet; the location of a password manager or a sealed note is enough.
Why the family needs it: OTPs go to a phone. Statements go to an email. If nobody can get into either, every other document on this list becomes harder to use.
Who should know where: One trusted adult. Review it once a year.
Originals or copies, and where to keep each?
Originals matter for deeds, the will, certificates (birth, marriage, death, degree), insurance policies and vehicle papers. Keep them together in one fireproof box or bank locker, with a list of what is inside. Use copies for daily needs. For Aadhaar and PAN, hand over a self-attested photocopy with the purpose written on it.
Scan everything once, properly: flat, in good light, every page, named clearly ("Sale deed, Anna Nagar flat, 2014, page 3 of 12"). A scan does not replace an original, but it proves a document exists, can be shared with a lawyer or a sibling in another city, and makes a lost one faster to reconstruct.
What about DigiLocker?
DigiLocker is the Government of India's digital document wallet, an initiative of the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology under Digital India. It describes itself as "a secure cloud based platform for storage, sharing and verification of documents & certificates". For government-issued documents such as Aadhaar, PAN, driving licence and vehicle RC, it is the right place to look first, and it reduces how often you need to touch the paper original.
What it does not hold is the rest of this list: bank and nominee details, the family doctor's number, the location of the will, the society share certificate, the handwritten recipe. Those need a private place of your own, shared with the right people.
How do you share documents with family without sharing them with everyone?
The usual answers are a WhatsApp group (which scrolls away and includes people who should not see your bank details) or a shared drive folder (open to everyone or forgotten). Better: one private place where each document is shared only with the people who may need it.
The FamRoot Vault today holds Last Messages and Future Messages, with 1 GB of free storage per user. A private space for family papers such as land papers, insurance documents, records and recipes, shared only with the members you choose, is planned; PDF and document uploads aren't supported yet. The Vault has its own password, data is stored on AWS in Mumbai, and by process and policy FamRoot staff do not view this content, except where the law requires.
Two honest limits. The Vault is not a legal registry: keep your originals, because a scan of a sale deed is not a sale deed. And if you delete your FamRoot account, your Vault content goes with it, so the physical folder and its list remain the foundation.
The most useful addition is a short "where everything is" note, shared with your spouse and children through the Vault: the locker number, the folder's shelf, the lawyer's name, the password manager's location. If you want that note to reach people only after you are gone, Last Message delivers it after a verified death report by close family.
The checklist
Print this, tick it, and date it. Review it once a year, on a day you will remember.
| Category | Documents | Original kept at | Scan shared with | Done |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Identity | Aadhaar, PAN, passport, voter ID, birth certificates, ration card | Spouse, adult child | ||
| Property | Sale deed, patta/khata, EC, tax receipts, building plan, society share certificate | Spouse, heir | ||
| Finance | Account list, FD receipts, PPF, demat/MF folios, loan papers, EPF, nominee records | Spouse, nominee | ||
| Insurance | Life, health, vehicle, home policies; claim contacts | Spouse, adult children, one relative nearby | ||
| Medical | Blood groups, prescriptions, allergies, reports, vaccination records, doctor's number | All adults in household | ||
| Family | Marriage certificate, death certificates, legal heir certificate, will, adoption or partition papers | Spouse, adult children, executor | ||
| Education and employment | Mark sheets, degrees, registrations, appointment letters, Form 16, tax returns | One other adult | ||
| Vehicle | RC, insurance, pollution certificate, licences, hypothecation removal | Everyone who drives it | ||
| Digital accounts | Account list, access instructions, password manager location | One trusted adult |
Where do you start?
Not with all nine. Start with nominee records and family records, the two that cause the most trouble when missing. Then insurance, then property. One category each weekend and the list is done in two months. The documents were always there. What changes is that more than one person can now find them.
Give the scans a private home. Keep your family papers in the Vault, shared only with the people who may one day need them. Sign up for free.