Keeping construction project records after completion

Which construction records should you keep?

Keep every record that shows what was agreed, what was built and why it changed. That means the contract set, variations and their approvals, RFIs with responses, submittals, drawings with every revision, daily logs, correspondence, certificates, as-builts and O&M manuals. Claims are argued from these contemporaneous records, not from memory.

Revision history matters as much as the final set. In a defects or delay dispute the question is usually which drawing or instruction was current on a given day, who issued it and when it was received. A folder of final PDFs does not answer that. Keep the registers, transmittals and mail threads that tie the documents together, and keep the dates.

• Head contract, subcontracts, consultant appointments and any deeds
• Variations, change orders and extension of time claims, with approvals
• RFIs and their responses
• Submittals, shop drawings and approval status
• Drawings and specifications, with every revision and the transmittals that issued them
• Daily logs or site diaries, photos and weather records
• Correspondence, formal mail, notices and meeting minutes
• Inspection and test plans, test results and non-conformance reports
• Certificates, including occupation or occupancy certificates and compliance certificates
• Progress claims, payment schedules and invoices
• As-built drawings and models
• Operation and maintenance (O&M) manuals and warranties

Why do construction records need to be kept for so long?

Because a claim can be brought long after the project closes. Limitation periods set the time someone has to bring a claim. Long-stops set an absolute cut-off from a fixed event such as completion. In the US, statutes of repose end the right to sue a set time after completion, even if a defect has not yet been found. For construction work, these commonly run for years after completion.

The period that applies depends on where the work was done, the type of claim, whether the work is residential and what the contract says. Deeds, warranties and statutory duties of care can each extend exposure. Limitation periods are the time to bring a claim, not record-keeping rules, but they set how long you may need to prove what happened.

Do record retention periods differ between Australia, the UK and the US?

Yes. Each country sets its own limitation periods for construction claims, and in Australia and the US each state sets its own as well. They start from different events and change over time, so a company that builds in more than one place needs a retention rule that covers the longest period that applies to its projects.

Australia has no single national retention period for project records. In the UK, England and Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland each have their own limitation rules. In England, higher-risk buildings also carry a separate duty: government guidance says building information for them (the golden thread) must be kept digitally, secure, available when needed and in a usable form. In the US, most states have a statute of repose for construction claims, and the periods differ from state to state.

What should you ask your lawyer about construction record retention?

Ask which periods apply to your projects and when each one starts, then set one retention rule that covers the longest. A lawyer who knows the jurisdictions where you build can answer that for your contracts, which a general guide cannot.

• Which jurisdictions our projects sit in, and which limitation periods, long-stops or statutes of repose apply in each
• Whether residential work, deeds, warranties or a statutory duty of care extend our exposure
• When each period starts, such as completion, an occupancy certificate, a breach or the discovery of a defect
• What our contracts, clients and insurers require us to keep, and for how long
• Whether company financial and tax records have their own minimum retention rules
• How a notified claim or dispute should change what we keep

When does the retention clock start?

Usually at completion, but each law defines completion differently, and some periods start when a defect is discovered or a contract is breached instead. That means the completion certificate, the occupation or occupancy permit and the date a defect was first reported are records in their own right. Keep them with the project record, not in a separate system.

• Completion or substantial completion of the building work
• Issue of an occupancy permit, occupation certificate or certificate of final inspection
• The date a contract was breached, often during or at the end of the works
• The date damage occurred, or the date a defect was discovered

How should you store construction records you need for years?

Store them somewhere that does not depend on a live platform subscription, in formats you can open without the original software, with the revision history intact. Then protect that copy from deletion and check it can be found and read. A record that exists but cannot be produced is little help in a dispute.

The platforms projects run on are not built for this. Procore's help pages say a Project Archive download is available for 30 days. Autodesk says access to cloud documents continues for about 30 days after a subscription ends. Oracle says it closes an Aconex project in not less than 30 days, after which every organisation loses access unless it has bought an archive. The project closeout checklist covers what each platform offers.

Cloud storage you control can enforce retention for you. Amazon S3 Object Lock and Azure Blob immutable storage both store data in a write once, read many state for a set retention period, so it cannot be changed or deleted until the period ends.

SIINC is one way to do this for Procore, Autodesk Forma, BIM 360 and Oracle Aconex projects. It backs up project records hourly as standard into Amazon S3 or Azure Blob Storage in your own account, where your own retention and immutability rules apply, and it works with S3 Object Lock and Azure immutable storage turned on.

• Keep original files and their revisions, plus the registers and transmittals that link them.
• Keep records in open, readable formats such as PDF, original CAD and model files, and structured data such as JSON or CSV.
• Set a retention rule that matches the longest period your lawyer identifies, and a process for keeping records tied to live claims.
• Name an owner for the archive, so it survives staff and system changes.
• Test once a year that someone can find and open a record from an old project.