Family Vehicle and Key Register

Who this is for

Where the keys are, and whose car is whose. The top table lists each vehicle with its registration, main driver and where the documents and the spare key live; the bottom table lists every key the household holds — doors, sheds, bikes, padlocks, the neighbour's — with who has it and where the spare is.

Households with more than one car, more than one driver and a hook of unlabelled keys by the door — and anyone who has had to ring a relative to ask which key opens the side gate.

What this helps you track

• Each vehicle, its registration and who mainly drives it
• Where the vehicle documents and the spare key are kept
• Every key in the house, what it opens and how many copies there are
• Who holds each key and where the spare is
• Where the code for a keysafe, padlock or alarm is written — not the code itself

How to use it

1. Write the household name and the date at the top.
2. List each vehicle — cars, vans, motorbikes, the caravan — with its registration, the main driver and where the log book, insurance and service papers are kept.
3. Write where the spare key for each vehicle lives. If you would rather not write the place on paper, write who knows.
4. List every key in the keys table: front and back doors, garage, shed, gate, bike locks, padlocks, windows, the neighbour's spare and the ones you hold for them.
5. For each key, write how many copies exist, who holds them and where the spare is. For anything with a code, write where the code is kept, never the code.
6. Keep the sheet in the binder, not by the door, and update it when a key is cut or a car is sold.

Formats

• Printable PDF (A4 and US Letter)
• Fillable PDF with form fields
• Fill in online, saved in your browser

The printable is laid out inside a box that fits both A4 and US Letter, so the two files are identical and neither one is scaled. The fillable PDF has real form fields. The online version keeps what you enter in your own browser and builds the completed PDF on your device.

How to print

Download the A4 or US Letter file to match the paper in your printer, open it in a PDF reader and print at 100% — not "fit to page", which shrinks the writing space. Both files leave a 14 mm margin, which clears the unprintable edge on home printers. To print the online version with your entries in it, use the Print this sheet button, which prints only the sheet and none of the page around it. More on printing.

Questions

Why not write the codes on the sheet?

Because a register of every key and code in the house is exactly the page you do not want a stranger to read. The column records where the code is kept — a password manager, a sealed envelope, someone's memory — so a family member can find it and nobody else can.

Where should the sheet itself be kept?

Somewhere a family member can find it and a visitor cannot: the home binder, a drawer, or the browser version on a device with a lock screen. Not on the fridge.

Does it replace the vehicle information sheet?

No. That sheet holds one vehicle's full details — tyre sizes, service dates, insurer. This is the household overview: which vehicles exist, who drives them and where the paperwork and keys are.

What about keys we hold for other people?

List them, with the owner's name in the 'key for' column. They are the ones most easily lost and the hardest to explain.