safety deposit box

A question about : safety deposit box

Hi this might seem like a mad question - but some of you banking bods might know the answer. About 20 years ago I inherited a safety deposit box & envelope from my my mother, probably opened in the 1950s. The envelope has the deeds to her house in it & the box has some sentimental jewellery & things. I was the executor of her will at the time. I checked all was as it should be & had apart from adding some bits & pieces of my own -I have left things as they were.
The envelope & box were transferred into my name. I have never been contacted by the bank or been charged in anyway. They have my current address. Am I likely to be hit with a large bill for 20 years of safekeeping. I'm frightened to bring their attention to it, but at the same time I need to know. i'm not a customer with this bank,
Please help

Best answers:

• It can be dependent on you having an account with the bank in question. HSBC let my father have a deposit box in return for his current account business.
  If you haven't got an account then I suspect there will be charges.
  The banks are keen to reduce the deposit facilities (for security / insurance reasons?)
  For instance my mother-in-law was forced to empty her box from Lloyds (because they were merging branches) & my father had to move his box from Barclays to HSBC even though he had banked with Barclays for life and at a major city branch.
  Who's it currently with?
• My parents get charged Ј18 per year by HSBC for the safety deposit box. It does rise periodically it seems. Their computer system does log what is in the box - they do want to know, despite a lot of people saying that they don't. It can however be a simple description such as "a sealed envelope". Maybe it depends how big the item is ho9 wmuch they want to knw about it?
  I was told by someone that you can now store house deeds for free by certain banks - this would free up some of the boxes which are allegedly in short supply if the contents are small and do not fill them. I can't remember which banks do this though - anyone know?
  If your house is registerd o nthe land recgistry database it is less important to have the deeds than if they are the only proof of ownership.
  Private deposit boxes are expensive.
  You might be interested in this report too - https://www.moneyweek.com/file/49136/...-for-swag.html
• This thread is super old.
• The deeds to the house and two wills have been kept by my solicitor.
  There was no mention of a charge. Reading this thread has made me realise that I will not know if my daughter gets a request for payment but I doubt it. I like my solicitor very much and doubt there will be any request for payment unless she asks for a Will Aid contribution for the very first one I did and cancelled later. The later wills were paid for.