Storing clients' documents: how to turn a cost into income

If you are a solicitor, will writer or estate planner, you are almost certainly storing client documents at a loss. Not a dramatic one, but a real one: space, insurance, staff time, and a long-term liability that never appears on a balance sheet. This guide is about why that happens and what the alternatives are, including doing nothing.

What storage really costs your firm

Most firms have never costed it, because it arrived gradually. A drawer became a cabinet, a cabinet became a room.

The line items are straightforward once you look. Physical space, which in an office is rarely cheap per square foot. Fireproof cabinets, which are a capital cost and a replacement cycle. Insurance, assuming your policy genuinely covers client documents held in custody, which is worth checking rather than assuming. Staff time for filing, indexing and retrieval. And the recurring administrative cost of responding to enquiries, including from executors who are often distressed and rarely have all the information you need.

None of these is large on its own. Together, for a firm holding a few thousand wills, they are a meaningful annual number attached to a service most firms provide for nothing.

The liability nobody prices in

The cost is the smaller half. The liability is the larger one.

You are holding documents that cannot be replaced, for people who will mostly not be alive when the documents are needed, on behalf of families who will judge your firm entirely by whether the document appears when asked for. A single misfiled will is a complaint, a professional embarrassment and potentially a claim.

Then there is the question you cannot answer indefinitely: what happens to these documents when this firm eventually merges, is sold, or winds down? Every firm faces this. Very few have written down an answer. Clients are starting to ask, and the question is becoming part of how people choose a will writer.

What clients actually want

Three things, and firms often assume the wrong one matters most.

They want the document to be safe, which they largely take for granted. They want to know it can be found, which they worry about more than firms realise. And increasingly they want to be told what happens to it if you are not there, which is the one most firms have no answer for.

A firm that can answer all three confidently has a selling point, not just an overhead.

Three models firms use

Store it yourself and absorb the cost. The default. It is simple, it keeps everything under your roof, and it works until the room is full or the continuity question is asked in a way you cannot deflect.

Store it yourself and charge for it. Better economics, but you still carry the space, the insurance, the retrieval admin and the long-term liability. You have monetised the cost without removing it.

Outsource custody and resell it. Somebody else holds the documents, insures them, handles retrieval and carries the continuity obligation. You buy at a wholesale rate, set your own client price, and keep the difference. The cost line becomes a revenue line and day-to-day custody sits with a specialist, although your firm stays responsible for choosing that provider carefully and overseeing the arrangement.

There is no universally right answer. A firm with fifty wills and a spare cupboard has no problem to solve. A firm with four thousand and a full room does.

How outsourcing works in practice

The mechanics are less disruptive than people expect.

Documents are sent securely, or handed over in person by appointment, and logged individually on receipt, so there is a record of exactly what has been handed over. Clients are told where their documents are held, because transparency to the client is not optional. Retrieval requests, including searches for a will or document after a death, come to the storage provider rather than to your reception. You keep the client relationship; the day-to-day custody moves to the provider.

Existing back catalogues are the part firms worry about, and it is usually the easiest part. We migrate existing files free for most firms, subject to a quick assessment of volume and location.

The numbers

Wholesale rates are quoted per firm, because the sensible rate depends on how many documents you hold, where your offices are and how the archive is organised. What does not change is the shape of the arrangement: you buy at a wholesale rate, set your own client price, and keep the margin on every document for as long as it is held. Client prices in the market typically sit somewhere between £20 and £40 a year.

The arithmetic is worth doing on your own back catalogue rather than on an example. Take the number of documents you currently hold, apply a realistic client price, subtract the wholesale cost you are quoted, and compare the result with what that same catalogue costs you today in space, insurance and time. For most firms the swing is larger than expected, because it moves a cost to a revenue rather than just reducing a cost.

Tell us your volumes and where you are based and we will come back with a rate.

Arrangements are set out in a written partner agreement. We use a twenty-four month minimum term with a fair exit, meaning no punitive fees and your files remain yours throughout, or a twelve month term with a small migration fee if you prefer the shorter commitment.

Data protection and regulatory points

Four things to get right, none of them difficult.

Your client-care documentation should say where documents are held and by whom, because clients are entitled to know who has custody of their originals.

If storage is a paid service you are reselling, be transparent about the arrangement. Codes of practice in this sector expect referral and reselling arrangements to be disclosed, and it is the right thing to do regardless.

Outsourcing custody does not outsource accountability. If your firm is regulated by the SRA, it remains accountable for work carried out on its behalf, so carry out due diligence on any storage provider before you sign and keep a record of it on file. Will writers should check the equivalent expectations in their own code of practice.

And the data protection position should be documented: who is controller, who is processor, and what the agreement between you says. Any storage partner should be registered with the Information Commissioner's Office and able to produce the paperwork without having to go and find it. We are registered under DJI728 Ltd, ICO registration ZC242588.

What to ask a storage partner

The same questions your clients should be asking you.

What is the insurance position and what is it insured for? Where are documents physically held, and what is the fire and flood protection? What is the documented continuity plan if the storage provider itself stops trading? What is the retrieval process and what does it cost my client or their executors? What happens to my files if I want to leave? And who is the data controller?

If you would like to see what the numbers look like for your firm specifically, the outline is on our for professionals page, or you can ask us for partner rates and we will go through your back catalogue with you.

General information, not legal or regulatory advice. Prices correct at the time of writing.