With dozens of bush fires burning across the country and hazardous smoke blanketing Sydney and most of New South Wales, we’re all very aware of how significant the situation has become, but how can you ensure you are best prepared for the worst case scenarios?

One of our team members recently found themselves questioning this when they went to their “fire resistant safe” and all they had stored was their passport.

In the event of a fire we’ve put together a comprehensive list of all the important documents and items you should keep in a safe. Even if your family isn’t in an immediate danger zone, it’s a good time to take note of where these items are and update copies so you can “grab and run” if you have the time to prepare during an evacuation.

1.     Birth Certificates – preferably originals or alternatively a certified copy witnessed by a Justice of the Peace (JP), Lawyer or other authorised person.

2.     Marriage Certificate – again make sure you make a certified copy.

3.     Any Wills, Power of Attorney or Enduring Guardianships – we also suggest you have a scanned copy of these documents and leave a copy with your lawyer or send a copy to a trusted friend or family member.

4.     Passports – not only are these expensive to replace but they also act as an official form of identification when applying for other services.

5.     Insurance details – Home, automotive, life and private health. We also suggest making a video recording of the inside of your house as it can be helpful to show the residence and any items of significant value within your contents. For example furniture, artworks, TVs, computers and appliances. You could then store this video on a flash drive in the safe or better yet in the cloud so its accessible anywhere, anytime.

6.     List of medications and medical information that is relevant to your family. We also suggest you make a scan or photocopy of your Medicare, any concession or private health insurance cards.

7.     Consider keeping some cash and secondary bank access cards or a copy of your bank cards.

8.     Any heirlooms like jewellery or irreplaceable photos. Again, think about storing important photos on a flash drive or in the cloud as well.

9.     Spare sets of keys – for the house and any vehicles.

Best practice is to ensure the above important documents and items are kept in a Fire Proof Box or Safe. This ensures that your documents are safe from theft and also fire.

The old saying is “prepare for the worst, hope for the best” but how often do we actually do this?

As experts in Family Law, we often need copies of documents such as those listed out above to assist our clients with their family law matter. Our clients usually have the benefit of taking time to collect these items from around their home.

Unfortunately, in the event of an emergency, you won’t have time, nor may you be thinking clearly to remember where these items are in the home. It’s a small life admin task to ensure you get your affairs in order. In an emergency when time is not on your side to go looking or worse yet, everything is lost to disaster of theft, having a fire, water and burglary proof safe prepared and ready to go may make all the difference.

The team at Lagom Family Law wishes everyone a safe and happy Christmas break this year. Our hopes and thoughts are with those families and emergency services battling or effected by the bush fires at this time.

Lagom is a Swedish word and means “not too little, not too much, just right”. This is our philosophy of practice as we aim to provide tailored advice specific for your individual needs - that’s just right for you!

Lagom Family Law is a boutique legal practice lead by Principal Lichee Hogland who strives to achieve the best possible outcome for her clients whilst being approachable and respectful.