Dealing with disciplinary records
It’s important to keep property records for a number of financial and legal reasons. Whether it’s tax documents, future loan applications or legal documents, you need to make sure you have access to a physical copy of the relevant information. But there is no definitive policy for how long to keep property records: there are many different types of document, and some that you only need to retain for a specific amount of time.
What types of records should you keep?
There are two main categories of property record that should be retained: permanent and temporary records.
Permanent records
Permanent records are those that need to be kept for the duration of your time in the property. These sorts of documents include:
- Stamp duty land tax
- Land transaction tax (only available in Wales)
- The purchase contract
- Solicitor’s letters and documents
- Mortgage documents
- Sale contract
Temporary records
Temporary records relate to the running of the property as well as the bills, receipts and invoices on the property. These include:
- Solicitor’s fees
- Gas and electricity safety checks
- Mortgage interest payments
- Council tax and utility bills
- Property insurance documents
- General repair and maintenance
If you use a building for non-domestic purposes (as a shop, office or warehouse, for example) you’ll likely have to pay business rates. These are tax records that are also worth holding on to for the duration of the property’s usage.
So, how long should you keep property records for?
Temporary records should be kept for three to seven years, as this will help you keep on top of managing your mortgage (if you have one) and your property more generally.
It can be tempting to store all your records digitally, but it’s important to keep originals in a hard copy format. If you have to go to court for anything to do with the property, you’ll need hard copies of all of these records.
It’s also really important to store all the hard copies in a secure location, which comprises intruder alarms, fire detection and CCTV. If that’s not a facility immediately available to you, you can get solicitors to put your documents into safe storage, or you can outsource to a records management service. They should also be kept in chronological order for easier retrieval.
Managing your property records
Getting into the habit of good document management can take some time. You’ll need to create storage space for your records and a schedule for retention and eventual destruction. Take some time at the beginning of each month to sort and file new records, considering whether they are permanent or temporary, and if they can be stored away indefinitely or if they will need to be retrieved on a regular basis.
If you’re going to be storing your records for a long time, it’s worth investing in specialised archive boxes to protect your documents. If you’re only going to make electronic copies, at the very least make sure that you create multiple backups of your files. However, it does bear repeating that you should retain physical copies of original documents wherever possible.
If you would like more information on managing your property records, contact our records management and document scanning experts at Access Records Management today. We can help you manage and store all of your records, from property to business to personal.
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