We have a similar situation, where we have several record series for
which some departments send the files to storage before the "Event
Date." That particular department may be done with their portion of the
project, but other departments are still ongoing.

In our case the "Event" is based on a single occurrence -- when the last
home in that community closes escrow. I have them index and box the
records in such a way that we can later find all records for that
community and edit the database record to update the "Event" field, then
calculate the destruction date for all the boxes at that time.

Now your case, customer contracts, may be more difficult, since you may
have expiration dates across many years all in the same box. We have
another situation that is somewhat similar. We have a lending arm that
writes mortgages for our homebuyers. Virtually all of those loans are
sold on the secondary market, but the way the agreements are written
(don't even go there -- it's an issue) we must maintain the sold loan
files for at least 3 years after the loan is paid off. Well we won't
even try to track each and every loan and when the actual payoff date
is, so we just measure the retention from the close of escrow + the
length of the loan + the 3 years. We just make sure that all the loans
that go in the box closed escrow within the same year, then we choose
the longest term (we write 15, 25, 30 and 50 year loans). I am working
toward them identifying loans by term and grouping them that way, but
for now we just go with the longest. Some loans may very well be
refinanced in 5 years, but it's just too much trouble to track and
holding any particular loan longer doesn't expose us to that much risk. 

Are your contracts open-ended or is there a set term with any number of
set option periods? If it's the latter you could use a similar set up.


Nolene
 
Nolene Sherman | Director of Records Management | Standard Pacific Homes
| 949.789.1668 | [log in to unmask]


-----Original Message-----
From: Records Management Program [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On
Behalf Of Hurst, Ruth
Sent: Thursday, August 10, 2006 7:15 AM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [RM] Managing retention condition

We have several record series with destruction requirement of 4 years
after expiration date. These records are sent to archives prior to their
expiration due to the large volumes, and since they are customer
contracts the expiration date is unknown when sent to archive. Other
than retaining these documents "permanently" , does anyone have any
recommendations on how to monitor destruction? Any suggestions would be
appreciated! 

Thank you
Ruth Hurst
Team Leader, Document Services
Nevada Power Company
Phone: 367-5028
Fax: 579-0964



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