Florida Intervault · Fort Lauderdale · since 1983
Years away.
What matters, still where you left it.
Jewelry, watches, coins, deeds and passports kept in one recorded vault box, with the rent paid ahead for the whole term and one named person who can act while you are gone.
Not a bank. Every renter is identified and every visit recorded. Warrants, subpoenas and court orders are honored.
Family-owned since
1983
Vault rating
9R
Each of two vault doors
14,000 lb
Off each year, 5+ year terms
25%
A year, from
$795
The problem
A sentence of several years outlasts most of the arrangements made for it.
The ring, the watch, the coins, the deed to the house and the passport usually go one of three places. Each works for a few months. Few of them hold for years.
Left at home
Houses are sold, rented out or emptied while someone is away. A relative moves, a lease ends, a drawer gets cleared by someone who did not know what was in it.
Left with a relative
Good intentions do not survive every move, illness or family argument across five or ten years. Nobody wrote down what was handed over.
Left in a bank box
A bank box needs its rent paid. Florida presumes a bank box abandoned once it has gone unclaimed for 3 years after the rental period ends, and the state can sell the contents. How lapse works.
Source: Florida Statutes § 717.116 (2026), which governs bank safe-deposit boxes — checked 2026-10-19.
For defense attorneys
An answer to the question clients ask before surrender.
Identified renters, logged visits, legal process honored, and a one-page handout your client can take home. No referral fees, ever.
For families
When you are the one left holding the jewelry box.
What a family can and cannot do on someone’s behalf, and how to set it up while the person can still sign.
How it works
Four steps, all of them before the surrender date.
01
The attorney decides what moves
Before anything comes here, the client and the attorney settle what is free to move. Anything that is, or may be, part of the case stays where counsel says. We would rather wait a week than store the wrong thing.
02
Identified intake, signed inventory
The renter is identified against government-issued photo ID. Every item is listed on a signed inventory, with serial numbers where they exist. The renter keeps a copy and can give one to the attorney and the family.
03
Rent for the whole term
Choose a term that covers the expected absence with room to spare. Terms of 3 to 5 years carry 20% off each year's rent; terms of 5 years or more carry 25%. A paid-up box does not depend on anyone remembering a renewal.
04
One named person can act
The rental agreement says who may enter: a joint renter, or a trust or company the renter controls. Every visit is identified and logged. Whether an agent under a power of attorney can enter: TODO_FACT: does Florida Intervault accept a durable POA agent, and what must the agent show?
What to store
What people wish they had put somewhere recorded.
Questions people ask
Straight answers.
Where a question is legal rather than practical, we say so and send you back to the attorney.
All 10 questions →Belongings stay wherever they were left, under the control of whoever holds the lease, the storage contract or the keys. The jail or prison decides what a person may keep inside. Everything outside needs a named person, usually an agent under a power of attorney, to look after it.
A sentence does not pause a lease, a storage contract or a car loan. Everything a person owned on the day they went into custody stays where it was, and someone on the outside ends up deciding what becomes of it. Often nobody decides. A lease that goes unpaid ends on the landlord’s terms. A storage unit that goes unpaid is handled under the storage contract, which the renter signed and probably never read.
The full answer →A house remains the owner’s property during a sentence unless a court orders otherwise, while the mortgage, property taxes and insurance keep coming due. Unpaid Florida property taxes lead to a tax certificate sale, then a possible tax deed sale. An agent named in a power of attorney pays them.
A Florida power of attorney needs the principal’s signature, two subscribing witnesses and a notary’s acknowledgment. The agent must be a natural person 18 or older or a qualified financial institution with trust powers. Inside a jail or prison, the notary and witnesses are arranged with the facility first.
Florida’s signing rules for a power of attorney do not include a lawyer. The principal and two subscribing witnesses sign, and a notary acknowledges the document. Whether a homemade form grants the powers a lender or vault will accept is a question for an attorney to answer before signing.
Valuables left during a sentence usually go to a relative’s home, a self-storage unit, a bank safe deposit box or a private vault. The deciding factors are who can get in while the owner is away, how far ahead rent is paid, and whether a signed inventory exists.
Said plainly
What we do not do.
These are the reasons an attorney can mention us without risk to the client.
How we handle legal process →- Nothing here is out of the law's reach. Warrants, subpoenas and court orders are honored.
- No anonymous, unrecorded or off-book rental. Every renter and every agent is identified against photo ID, and every visit is logged.
- If an item is, or may be, part of a case, the attorney decides before it moves. Storage is not a way around forfeiture, restitution or a judgment.
- We pay no referral fees, commissions or gifts to attorneys, and attorneys receive nothing from us for a recommendation.
- Not a bank. Contents are not FDIC insured, and neither are the contents of a bank's box. Insurance is arranged separately against a declared value.
- We store. We give no legal, tax or financial advice, and we do not buy or sell metal.
- No firearms.
Know someone facing a sentence?
Send them the page, in your own words.
We never contact anyone on someone else’s behalf. If this would help a person you know, share it yourself.
Visits are by appointment, Monday to Friday.