Health and Safety Records retention: an overview
It’s important for legal firms to have a strong records management policy due to the large amounts of sensitive documents that they handle, including different types of agreements, instructions, and case notes. It’s largely agreed across the profession that the minimum legal document retention period should be at least six years for most types of record, as this is the primary limitation period under the Limitation Act 1980. However, other legal documents need to be kept for 15 years or more.
Some firms will retain all records just to safeguard against any future issues, but this approach can take up a lot of physical space and it costs both time and money to sort and store records properly. This is where knowledge of more specific legal records retention laws can be handy.
This short guide will highlight some of the key things you need to know about legal document retention and should serve as a reminder on what documents you need to keep.
Legal records to keep for up to six years
As mentioned, many legal documents are kept for six years, as this is the primary limitation period under the Limitation Act 1980. These include records related to:
- County Court Litigation
- Debt collection
- Immigration
- Personal injury
- Crime
Legal records to keep for 15 years
Some files should be kept for 15 years, due to the longstop under section 14B of the Limitation Act 1980. These documents are relevant to cases that stand more of a chance of having claims made outside of the primary limitation period.
Files on the following subjects should be kept for 15 years:
- Commercial property
- Commercial transactions
- Financial Services
- Matrimonial matters
- Probate
- Property sales
- Residential property purchases
- Sales of leasehold properties
- Children
Files that should be kept for longer than 15 years
Other more important files should be kept for longer than 15 years – ideally, they won’t be thrown away at all. These include records such as:
- Change of name
- Company formation
- Court of Protection
- Declaration of trust
- Patents/intellectual property matters
- Pension schemes
- Power of attorney
- Wills
Will and deed storage
Only original copies of wills and deeds are legally binding, so it’s particularly important to keep the original versions safely stored. Wills can be changed and updated over time, but it will be the most recent version that will be used in court to divide an estate. And, original deeds can hold extra information that might be useful in the event of a dispute, including information on legal boundaries and who the previous owner was.
Different legal firms will have different policies on how long they hold on to an original will or deed, some waiting until after the client’s death, keeping it indefinitely or having a finite period (30 years from creation, for example). Whatever the rule is, it’s important that it is communicated clearly to the client and is organised in a way that makes it easy to conduct records retrieval when it’s needed.
Defining possession of legal documents
Before destroying a legal document, you need to determine who owns its contents. Most records will contain some documents that belong to you, and other documents that belong to the client or third parties. Documents that are in your possession on behalf of a client or a third party must be dealt strictly in accordance to their instructions – not yours.
There are generally four broad categories of ownership:
Documents prepared by you for your client’s benefit
Documents that you prepare in exchange for payment belong to them. Examples include instructions and briefs.
Documents prepared by you, for you
If you have prepared documents for your own use that you haven’t charged your client for, then they’re yours. Examples include tape recordings of conversations and entries in diaries.
Documents that the client sends to you during the retainer
If your client sends you a document with information for you, then the document belongs to you. Examples include letters, instructions given to you by the client.
Documents that a third party sends to you during the retainer
If documents were prepared by a third party at your expense, they belong to you. Otherwise, they belong to the client. Examples include receipts and vouchers for disbursements made by you on behalf of the client.
Working with a records management service takes the hassle out of legal document retention. A dedicated third-party document storage provider can take on the burden of document retention for you, so you can be safe in the knowledge that you’re compliant with all relevant regulations and can access your documents at any time.
Need to work with a records management expert on legal document retention? Contact us today!
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