Sooner or later, you may well end up in possession of confidential documents or other high-value portable assets that should be kept in a safe place, such as an overseas security deposit facility.
What kinds of things are we talking about? Any valuable document. Things like car titles, coins (rare), passports, bearer shares, citizenship records, bills of sale, pension records, academic records, trust documents, immigration documents, rare stamps, mortgage documents, etc. You may also want to store data like USB sticks or backup DVDs securely off-site.
Many experts also recommend a safe 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 do not want them to have access for your lifetime, keep the key and arrange for it to be delivered to you in a sealed envelope with instructions, in the event of death or disability.
Should you use a bank or independent safe deposit box company?
Generally, the best solution is to rent a safe deposit box from a major and trustworthy first-class bank, not just from a safe deposit box company. Many banks will require that you also have an account with them and that withdrawals to pay rent from the box be authorized in advance.
Why should you use a bank instead of an independent security deposit company? Because independent companies seem to give in or get mugged 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 nom de plume you want to give them. Clients can be admitted on the basis of a plastic card without the need for registration. As such box is not linked to any account or payment service, it is up to the user to pay several years in advance. This will prevent the box from being opened and the contents sold for non-payment of rent.
A client told me the sad story of how after a long hospital stay due to cancer, he discovered that his box in a public storage unit 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 were worth nothing like stocks, but of great value to collectors. One had a rare original signature of inventor Thomas Edison. They were discarded as waste paper.
Best Countries for Offshore Safe Deposit Boxes
Austria, Switzerland, and Luxembourg are traditional safe havens that are perfect for safes. 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 a chance at one of the few unmanned border crossings!
Vienna and Zurich airports are also convenient hubs for domestic airlines. You can comfortably pass through these countries when traveling between other cities. Just arrange a stop long enough to visit your hideout; putting in or taking out what you need. To get a local safe, you don’t need 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 have no problems, it doesn’t matter much which one you use. But you must have at least one trusted person who knows 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 have opened the box, consider depositing the key in a sealed envelope at the bank escrow office or your personal private banker. By doing this, you ensure that the key is not discovered on your person or among your possessions by anyone with dubious intentions, such as your future ex-wife.
Many bank safes have two keys – you have one. The second (a general access code) is stored in the bank. Only with both can the box be opened.
In the latest high-tech safes, 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 safe crackers are good at picking combination locks. They are less secure than complex keys, in our experience. We also don’t like memorized secret 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, especially those in Zurich, want to see and photocopy the ID every time you access your mailbox, even if it is known. Wherever your mailbox is, make sure you are introduced to various staff members who can help you access your mailbox without identification should you need it. Tell them to take a good look at it and remember you personally so that you can always access your box or the money in the account without any identification. Tell them your favorite stupid joke or story 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 key from a safe 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 key and instructions with your personal banker or someone you trust implicitly. Also think about the future! Leave the death instructions in your box, in case something happens to you. These can be written or they can be on a CD in video form. Your safe will open after about a year or two of inactivity, as long as the annual fees are not paid.
Sometimes a safe is forgotten for decades. Approximately seventy years after the criminal mastermind and reputed billionaire Al Capone died in prison, a closed bank he once owned in Chicago was discovered to have a secret and forgotten underground vault registered in 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, including myself, tuned in to the grand opening. We think it would be an event equivalent to the discovery of the fabulous tomb of King Tut in Egypt. What happened? It was a good show with a disappointing ending. Apparently someone with a spare key to Al Capone’s safe had arrived first. There was nothing of the least 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 rental payments from that account’s safe deposit box. With such instructions and automated payment, you could be dead for many years before you are left for dead and your box is drilled. Therefore, perhaps your banker should be instructed to open your instructions (not your box) in case he does not hear from you for a certain period of time, such as three years. Better yet, your banker should be instructed “after 3 years of no contact, contact my attorney, XYZ, or your children, wife, best friend.” Someone you trust should have instructions on what to do with your property in the event of 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 by suing you, should receive a sealed power of attorney or an assignment plus a valid will so that all loose ends are tied up. Without this, in Switzerland, for example, the bank simply keeps its assets! Simple as that. In English-speaking countries, there is generally an exclusion law that covers inactive accounts and the contents of abandoned safes. 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 have a very limited time to claim. Most never do so because they never find out about assets.
Your anonymous safe in an Austrian palace
The Swiss and Austrians generally excel at managing 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 security deposit 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. Their name is Das Safe and their website is http://www.dassafe.com If you are in Vienna, you can visit them at Auerspergstrasse 1. We predict that they will stay in business for a long time, but how long they will be allowed to take business Anonymous is open to questioning.
Other recommended security deposit facilities in Austria are at the Schoellerbank branches (where no password is required, access is regulated by an electronic fingerprint scan) and at the Raiffeisenbank in the “secret” Jungholz enclave.
A reliable security deposit company in Prague
Another service that we are familiar with is the Prague security deposit in the Czech Republic. They require a valid ID to open a box. The service from that moment on is highly professional and discreet without the need for identification for later access. You can pay up to five years in advance. The entrance to the main vault is self service with a magnetic card system at the front door. You can give the card and the door key to anyone. They can then access their safe without having to meet with a staff member or identify themselves in any way.
This particular company is a joint venture between one of the Czech banks and the Chequepoint chain of money changers. It has been around since 1992. They are located in the basement of a former bank building next to the famous Wenceslas Square. They welcome visitors to come and inspect the facilities. The address is 28 Ijna 13. The website is not currently available in English, but if you visit them, you will find that they speak English.