Ask Francine

Fear and loathing are why people save everything: fear of throwing out the wrong bit of paper and loathing the task of sorting through it all. But you can spare your heirs some unpleasantness by winnowing the essential records and depositing them with your attorney.

In your case, one drawer of house-sale information isn't so bad, and the lawyers and accountants I consulted tell me you have saved pretty much the bare minimum. "I'd advise holding on to all of it, even though it sounds compulsive," counsels Celeste Hammond, director of the Center for Real Estate Law at the John Marshall Law School in Chicago. Why would you need records from houses long vacated? Taxes. In 1997 the Taxpayer Relief Act changed how home sales are taxed. Before that date, you could roll over your profit into your next residence — and your next and your next, deferring taxes on gains each time. There may still be consequences to those old sales when you sell your present house. Except for your current residence and the previous one (for which you should save every scrap of paper), you don't need the full inch-high file for every transfer, suggests St. Louis, Mo., attorney Lisa Pool Byrne of Blumenfeld, Kaplan & Sandweiss. For each sale, just pull out and save the one- or two-page closing statement or, for more recent transfers, the Real Estate Settlement Procedures Act (RESPA) form, or HUD-1. These legal-size sheets contain all the essential information, including the name of the title-insurance company.

As for your bank statements and canceled checks, accountants advise saving them for seven years. And keep those tax returns forever: in the unlikely event the IRS claims you didn't file in 1958 or 1972, you'll need to prove you did.

Be vigilant about saving proof of real estate tax payments and all contracts and checks relating to capital improvements on your current house. The good news: three years after filing any tax return, you don't need to keep every check, says Donald Schaffer, a certified public accountant in Northbrook, Ill. "Ask yourself whether you're likely ever to be asked about it," he says. "It is not a requirement that each of us buy a second plot to bury our canceled checks and brokerage statements with us."

E-mail questions to Francine at time.com/askfrancine