The community's paperwork: what to keep, for how long and how

A community's archive is not bureaucracy: it is its legal and financial memory. And it fits in very little space if you know what to keep.

Forever

• The minute book(s) and every set of minutes.
• The deed of constitution, the horizontal division and the bylaws (the building's "constitution").
• Resolutions with permanent effect (authorised enclosures, changes to the cost split, internal rules in force).
• Designs and certificates for major works (the technical inspection, the refurbishment, the new lift).

Six years (the general commercial and tax obligation)

• Invoices and supporting documents for income and expenditure.
• Bank statements and annual settlements.
• Payroll and social security if there were employees (there, better make it ten).

For as long as they live, plus a margin

• Contracts (cleaning, lift, insurance): the current one and the previous one.
• Policies and claim reports (until the limitation period expires).
• Guarantees for works and equipment.

The how matters more than the how long

The archive that works is the accessible one: if consulting the 2021 minutes means phoning the former chair and asking him to rummage in his storage room, you do not have an archive — you have archaeology. Digitising the essentials (a legible scan does for almost everything day to day) and sharing it with the committee turns every query from a "mission" into "two clicks". The original paper of what matters, additionally, kept and locatable.