Sooner or later, you may end up in possession of sensitive documents or other high-value portable assets that need to be stored in a secure location, such as an offshore safe deposit facility.

What kind of things are we talking about? Any valuable paper. Things like car titles, (rare) coins, passports, bearer shares, citizenship records, bills of sale, pension records, school records, trust documents, immigration documents, rare stamps, mortgage documents, etc. You may also want to store data, such as USB memory sticks or DVD backups, securely offsite.

Many experts also recommend a safe deposit box for estate planning purposes. To pass the contents of a safe to your heirs without any formalities, it is only necessary that another person has access and a key. This is accomplished by making the heir a signer on the box. If you don’t want them to have access during your lifetime, you keep the key and arrange for it to be given to them in a sealed envelope with instructions, in the event of death or disability.

Should you use a bank or an independent safe deposit company?

In general, the best solution is to rent a safe deposit box from a major, reputable, first-class bank, not just a box company. Many banks will require that you also have an account with them and that withdrawals be authorized to pay your teller rental in advance.

Why should you use a bank instead of an independent security deposit company? Because independent businesses seem to be shut down or robbed with great regularity. Like public storage facilities, they are also frequently used by less desirable characters.

On the other hand, a private storage team may not require any identification to open a box. They can accept any pseudonym you want to give them. Customers will be able to be admitted on a plastic card basis without the need to register. As said box is not linked to any account or payment facility, it is up to the user to pay several years in advance. This will prevent the box from being opened and the contents being sold for non-payment of rent.

A client told me the sad story of how after a long stay in hospital for cancer, he discovered that his box in a public storage room had been opened after a year for non-payment of rent. The content was sold at auction. He had a collection of old stock certificates that had no value as shares, but were of great value to collectors. One had a rare original signature of inventor Thomas Edison. They were disposed of as waste paper.

The best countries for safe deposit boxes at sea

Austria, Switzerland, and Luxembourg are traditional safe havens that are perfect for safe deposit boxes. A good country for a box is one where you don’t need to show a passport or go through formal border controls. This is not the case in Switzerland, unless you take your chances at one of the few unmanned border crossings!

Vienna and Zurich airports are also convenient hubs for domestic airlines. You can conveniently pass through these countries when traveling between other cities. Simply arrange to stop long enough to visit their hideout; putting in or taking out what you need. For a local safe deposit box it is not necessary to look for a tax haven. Any peaceful and stable country where property rights are respected is fine.

Almost all banks offer safe deposit boxes. If yours is located in a country where you don’t have problems, it doesn’t matter much which one you use. But you must have at least one trusted person who knows about the box and can access it. If you have an accident, it is important that your box is not forgotten or abandoned.

Keep the key safe!

When you’ve opened the safe, consider depositing the key in a sealed envelope at the bank’s escrow office or your personal private banker. By doing this, he ensures that no one with dubious intentions, such as his future ex-wife, discovers the key on his person or among his possessions.

Many bank safe deposit boxes have two keys: you have one. The second (a general access key) is kept by the bank. Only with both can the box be opened.

In the latest high-tech safe deposit boxes, there is no key. These safes can only be opened with fingerprint scans. Another solution is to use boxes in places where they have combination locks. Experienced safecrackers are good at picking combination locks. They are less secure than complex keys, in our experience. We are also not interested in secret memorized numbers. Why? Because more than once we have forgotten an important combination or password.

Make sure you can access the box without showing ID, in case you lose it and need to get your backups that you carefully kept inside the box! Some banks, particularly those in Zurich, want to see and photocopy your ID every time you access their till, even if it’s very well known. Wherever your box is, make sure you are introduced to several members of staff who can help you access your box without identification if you need it. Tell them to take a good look at you and remember you personally so that you can always access your cash or money in the account without any identification. Tell them your favorite stupid story or joke and tell them to remember it so you can retell it many years later. Then they will remember you!

Shhh… Can you keep a secret?

Don’t just take a safe deposit box key and keep it on a gold chain around your neck at all times. This is something that movie villains do.

If you want something secret, always think ahead. Do not tell anybody. Leave the password and instructions with your personal banker or someone you implicitly trust. Also think about the future! Leave the death instructions in his box, in case something happens to him. These may be written or may be on a CD in video form. Your box will open after about a year or two of inactivity, as long as annual fees are not paid.

Sometimes a safe deposit box is forgotten for decades. Some seventy years after criminal mastermind and reputed billionaire Al Capone died in prison, a once-owned closed bank in Chicago was discovered to have a long-forgotten, locked-up secret underground vault registered to his name. His money had never been found. A national television network bought the rights to show the drilling and reopening of this vault ‘live on television’. Many people, myself included, tuned in for the grand opening. We think it would be an event equivalent to the discovery of the fabulous tomb of King Tutankhamun in Egypt. What happened? It was a good show with a disappointment for a finale. Apparently someone with a spare key to Al Capone’s safe had gotten there first. There was nothing of the slightest interest in the vault.

Will your secrets die with you?

Most offshore banks will require that you have a bank account with them and that they are authorized to withdraw your annual safe deposit box rental payments from that account. With such instructions and automated payment, he could be dead for many years before he is presumed dead and his box is punctured. Therefore, your banker should perhaps be instructed to open his instructions (not his box) in case he doesn’t hear from you for a certain period of time, say three years. Better yet, your banker should be instructed “after 3 years of no contact, contact my attorney, XYZ, or his children, wife, best friend.” Someone you trust should have instructions on what to do with your property in the event of your death, disappearance, or disability. Your banker must know what to do or how and when to contact those people who will surely know where you are.

Perhaps someone you trust, who has nothing to gain from suing you, should receive a sealed power of attorney or assignment plus a valid will so that all loose ends are tied up. Without this, in Switzerland, for example, the bank only keeps your assets! Simple as that. In English-speaking countries there is often a reversal law that covers dormant accounts and the contents of abandoned safe deposit boxes. In England, unclaimed money and assets go to ‘The Crown’. In California, the contents of boxes and accounts inactive for more than seven years go to the Teachers’ Pension Fund.

In such cases, the heirs only have a very limited time to make the claim. Most never do because they never find out about the assets.

Your anonymous safe in an Austrian palace

The Swiss and Austrians generally excel at running discreet security deposit facilities. In almost all countries, identification is required to rent a safe. But in Austria, at the time of writing, there is a safe deposit box company that offers anonymous safes. It has been around for years and was highly recommended by a reader. It’s a good place to store second passports, bank cards, and other PT paraphernalia that you may not want to keep in your home country.

This company has its premises in the basement of a beautiful Viennese palace. Its name is Das Safe and its website is http://www.dassafe.com. If you are in Vienna, you can visit them at Auerspergstrasse 1. We predict they will be in business for a long time, but how long? they will be allowed to take anonymous business is questionable.

Other recommended secure deposit facilities in Austria are at branches of the Schoellerbank (where no key is required; access is regulated by electronic fingerprint scanning) and at the Raiffeisenbank in the ‘secret’ Jungholz enclave.

A reliable safe deposit company in Prague

Another service that we know of is the Prague safe deposit in the Czech Republic. They require a valid ID to open a box. The service from that moment on is very professional and discreet, without the need for identification to access later. You can pay up to five years in advance. Entry to the main vault is self-service with a swipe card system at the front door. You can give the door card and key to anyone. They can then gain access to your safe without needing to meet any member of staff or identify themselves in any way.

This particular company is a joint venture between one of the Czech banks and the chain of money changers Checkpoint. It has been around since 1992. They are located in the basement of an old bank building right next to the famous Wenceslas Square. They welcome visitors to come in and inspect the facilities. The street address is 28 Ijna 13. The website is currently not available in English, but if you visit it, you will find that they speak English.