ASK THE LAWYER
debbie wilson | springman, braden, wilson & pontius, P.c.
How long should you keep resident and
applicant records?
G
ood landlords and property managers
retain records on their residents long
after the resident has moved out.
These records include applications,
leases, records of payments; conversation logs, eviction notices, records of maintenance requests and
work performed, as well as screening criteria, records
for rejected applications and guest cards. Why?
For potential legal action later.
Legal action could be brought by a landlord
or could be brought against a Landlord by an
applicant, a resident, the Department of Justice,
the Colorado Civil Rights Division, any number
of watchdog groups for tenants’ rights, or even
the IRS. The statute of limitations varies depending on the nature of the claims and the myriad of
public policy reasons for limiting the allowable
time period for filing suit.
Recently, my firm collected $6,500 in unpaid
rent from a prior resident who vacated almost 5 years
ago. At the time of moveout, the resident had failed
to pay rent for four and a half months and the landlord had worked diligently with the resident, offering payment plans to try to have him catch up with
back rent. The resident finally moved out, owing a
substantial amount of money, and disappeared. The
landlord struggled to avoid foreclosure as the significant shortfall on rent made it difficult to make
the mortgage payments.
It took several years to track the resident down
(as he was sleeping