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Convention · For a flat or house — papers, renovations, appliances

Home & property

Everything about the property in one place, split into the papers that prove ownership, the work done to it, and the things inside it (with warranties you can actually find).

or in dossier: Settings → Filing convention → Start from an example

Filing convention — Home & property

Single source of truth for how documents about the property are named and filed. One property per project; if there’s more than one, each gets its own dossier project.

Folders

  • purchase/ — the sale: contract, deed/land registry, mortgage, handover protocol
  • legal/ — ownership over time: property tax, building insurance, co-owner meeting minutes, permits
  • utilities/ — electricity, gas, water, internet — each in a subfolder, in date order
  • renovation/ — one subfolder per project (renovation/bathroom-2025/), holding quotes, the signed order, invoices, and photos
  • appliances/ — one file per device, with its manual and warranty
  • maintenance/ — recurring service: boiler check, chimney sweep, alarm

Filenames

Date-first, then a short code for the vendor/subject, a title, and tags.

YYYY-MM-DD_[code]_short-title_(type).ext
2024-06-12_[notary]_purchase-contract_(contract)(de).pdf
2025-03-04_[bosch]_dishwasher-smv46_warranty-until-2030-03_(warranty).pdf
2026-01-15_[eon]_electricity-annual_842-eur_(statement).pdf
  • For appliances, put the warranty end date in the name (warranty-until-2030-03) so an expiry is visible without opening the file.
  • For utilities, the annual reconciliation is the one to keep findable; the monthly estimates can share a notices/ subfolder.

Tags

Type: contract, invoice, receipt, statement, warranty, manual, policy, permit, photo, letter. Language: de, en.

Rules & exceptions

  • A renovation quote that becomes an order — keep both: the quote is the agreed scope, the order/invoice is what was paid. Same project folder.
  • Appliance manuals without a warranty still go in appliances/, tagged manual, so the device’s paperwork is together.
  • Anything tied to the sale or the mortgage stays in purchase/ forever — it’s the paperwork you’ll need if you ever sell.
  • Photos (damage, before/after, meter readings) are filed like documents, dated, tagged photo, next to the paperwork they belong to.