Our School of Tax Strategy member, Debbie, has an overload of real estate papers and she would like to know what exact documents she will need to keep on hand and which ones she could discard or scan and save to a disc.
For tax purposes, the IRS allows records to be kept electronically, so there is no real reason to keep hard copies. There may be other laws that require you to keep hard copies of certain materials.
I suggest you keep a hard copy of your settlement statements, your mortgage note, and your deeds. And I suggest you keep them in a fireproof safe. These are the three documents on any real estate transaction that you are likely to need and to easily retrieve.
Warmest regards,
Tom