Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Pennsylvania

These documents are not meant as a souvenir for your children. Keep them with your other important documents. You should have a will and Health Care Directives and Power of Attorney, even if you don't have close family. Think of people you know and trust to appoint to carry out your instructions. All of those documents should be kept safe [but not in a safe deposit box], and your trusted agent should know where to find them.

The documents will be necessary to administer your estate, and if any of your parents, siblings, children or others whose heir you would be under the law has died but their estates not administered, those records would be required for that too.

THIS RESPONSE IS NOT LEGAL ADVICE, SINCE I DO NOT HAVE ALL OF THE INFORMATION THAT WOULD BE REQUIRED, AND I DO NOT HAVE A REPRESENTATION AGREEMENT WITH YOU.

* If the answers to your question confirm that you have a valid issue or worthwhile claim, your next step should almost always be to establish a dialog with a lawyer who can provide specific advice to you. Contact a lawyer in your county or township.

* Another reason for contacting a lawyer is that it is often impossible to give a good answer in the Internet Q&A format without having more information. The unique circumstances of your situation and things that you may not have thought to mention in your question may completely change the answer. If you want to be sure that you have a complete answer to your question and an understanding of what that answer means, establish a connection with a lawyer who practices in the area of your concern.

I agree with Attorney Jacobson. Keep them forever until you die if they are your records as your personal representative handling your estate may find them useful depending on what you own.

If these are someone else's records, keep them until the estate for that person has been completed (I am assuming that the person for whom the records exist are deceased). Unless they have some type of historical value. A historical society might want them.