You may, sooner or later, end up with sensitive letters or other portable assets of high value that need to be stored somewhere safe – such as an offshore safe deposit facility.
What things are we talking about? Every piece of paper counts. Things like car titles, Coins (rare), Passport, Bearer Stock, Citizenship Records, Sales Bills, Retirement records, school transcripts, trust documents, immigration papers, rare stamps, mortgage documents and so on. You may also want to store data such as USB memory sticks or spare DVDs safely offsite.
Safes are also recommended by many experts for estate planning purposes. In order to give the contents of the safe to your heirs without any formalities, all that is needed is for someone else to have access and a key. This is done by making the inheritor the 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 mailed to them in a sealed envelope with instructions, after you die or become disabled.
Should You Use an Independent Bank or Safe Deposit Box Company?
In general, the best solution is to rent a safe at a large, first-rate bank that you can rely on – not just a safe company. Many banks will require that you also have an account with them and that withdrawals to pay for box rent are authorized in advance.
Why should you use a bank rather than an independent safe deposit company? Because independent companies seem to fold or get robbed on a very regular basis. Like common storage facilities, they are also frequently used by less desirable characters.
On the other hand, personal storage clothing may not require any kind of identification to open the box. They may accept whatever nom de plume you wish to give them. Customers can be accepted on a plastic card without the need to log in. Since such boxes are not linked to any account or payment facility, users have to pay several years up front. This will prevent the box from being opened and its contents sold for non-payment of rent.
A client told me the sad story of how after a long stay in the hospital with cancer, he found that his box in a public storage unit had been opened after a year of non-payment of rent. Its contents are sold at auction. He has a collection of old stock certificates that are worthless as stock, but are invaluable to collectors. One of them bears the rare original autograph of inventor Thomas Edison. They are disposed of as waste paper.
Best Countries for Offshore Safe Deposit Boxes
Austria, Switzerland and Luxembourg are perfect traditional safe havens. A good country for a box is one where there is no need to present a passport or go through official border controls. This is not the case with Switzerland – unless you take your chances at one of the few unmanned border crossings!
Vienna and Zurich airports are also convenient national aviation hubs. You can easily pass through these countries when traveling between other cities. Just set a stop long enough to visit your stash; put in or take out what you need. For safe locations, you don’t need to look for tax havens. Any peaceful and stable country where property rights are respected is fine.
Almost all banks offer safes. If yours is located in a country where you have no problems, it doesn’t matter which country you use. But you must have at least one person you trust who knows about the box and can access it. If you are in an accident it is important that your box is not forgotten or abandoned.
Keep the Keys Safe!
When you’ve opened the box, consider storing the key in a sealed envelope in your bank’s or personal banker’s safekeeping office. By doing this, you ensure that the key will not be found on your person or among your things by anyone with dubious intentions, such as your future ex-wife.
Many bank safes have two locks – one held by you. The second one (public pass key) is kept by the bank. Only with these two can the box be opened.
In the newest high-tech safes, there are no locks. This safe can only be opened by fingerprint scanning. Another solution is to use an on-site box that has a combination lock. Experienced crackers are good at unlocking combos. They are less secure than complex locks – in our experience. We’re also not interested in secret memorized numbers. Why? Because we have repeatedly forgotten important combinations or passwords.
Make sure that you can access the box without showing ID, in case you lose it and need to get a backup copy that you have secured in the box! Some banks, particularly those in Zurich, will want to see and photocopy ID every time you access your box – even if you’re famous. Wherever your box is located, make sure you are introduced to some staff who can help you access your box without an ID if needed. Tell them to look out for and remember you personally so you can always access your box or the money in the account without any identification. Tell them your favorite joke or stupid story and tell them to remember it so you can tell it again years later. Then they will remember you!
Shhh… Can You Keep a Secret?
Don’t just take the key to the safe deposit box and keep it on a gold chain around your neck at all times. This is something that movie villains do.
If you want something confidential, always think ahead. Don’t tell anyone about it. Leave the keys and instructions with your personal banker or someone you implicitly trust. Also think ahead! Leave death instructions in your box – in case something happens to you. This can be written, or it can be on CD in video form. Your box will be unlocked after about a year or two of inactivity – if and when the annual fee isn’t paid.
Sometimes safe deposit boxes are forgotten for decades. Some seventy years after criminal mastermind and famed billionaire Al Capone died in prison, a closed bank he once owned in Chicago was found to have a long-forgotten secret underground vault registered to his name. The money was never found. A national television network purchased the rights to show the vault’s drilling and reopening ‘live on TV’. Many people, myself included, watched the grand opening. We think this will be an event that equals the discovery of King Tut’s amazing tomb in Egypt. What happened? It was a good show with a disappointment in closing. Apparently, someone with a spare key to Al Capone’s safe had gotten there first. Not the slightest bit of 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 payment from that account. With instructions and automatic payments like that, you could be dead for years before you’re considered dead and your box gets drilled. So your banker may have to be instructed to open your instructions (not your box) if he doesn’t hear from you for a certain amount of time, say three years. Better yet, your banker should be instructed “after 3 years of no contact, please call my attorney, XYZ, or your children, wife, best friend.” Someone you trust should have instructions on what to do with your assets if you die, disappear, or become disabled. Your banker should be told what to do or how and when to contact people who will know exactly where you are.
Perhaps someone you trust, who gains nothing from suing you, should be given a sealed power of attorney or assignment plus a valid will so 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 are usually escheat laws which cover inactive accounts and abandoned safe deposit box contents. In the UK, unclaimed money and assets go into ‘The Crown.’ In California, the contents of the box and accounts that have been neglected for more than seven years go to the Teacher’s Retirement Fund.
In such cases, the heirs have only a very limited amount of time to make claims. Most never do because they never study the assets.
Your Anonymous Safe in the Austrian Palace
The Swiss and Austrians generally excel at running secure storage facilities. In almost all countries, ID is required to rent a safe. However in Austria, at the time of writing, there is one safe deposit company that offers anonymous safes. It’s been around for years and is highly recommended by readers. This is a good place to store second passports, bank cards, and other PT paraphernalia that you may not want to keep in your home country.
The company has its facilities 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 they will stay in business for a long time, but for how long they will be allowed to take an anonymous business open to questioning.
Other recommended safe deposit facilities in Austria are at Schoellerbank branches (where keys are not required – access is regulated by electronic fingerprint scanning) and at Raiffeisenbank in the Jungholz ‘secret’ enclave.
Trusted Safe Deposit Company in Prague
Another service we know of is Prague Safe Deposit in the Czech Republic. They need a valid ID to open the box. The service since then is very professional and discreet with no ID required for later access. You can pay up to five years in advance. Entrance to the main vault is self service with a swipe card system at the main door. You can give anyone your door card and key. They can then gain access to your safe without meeting any staff or identifying themselves in any way.
This particular company is a joint venture between one of the Czech banks and the Checkpoint money exchange chain. It’s been around since 1992. They are located in the basement of an old bank building just off the famous Wenceslas Square. They welcome visitors to stop by and check out the facilities. The street 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.
