How long does Tamarack County keep permit files and correspondence?

What is in a permit file?

Section 1 of the schedule lists it: the application, the sketch, the review notes, the issued permit, the final inspection or closure record, and the associated payment references. That last item is why a fee receipt or a refund decision from the permit desk ends up in a file the clerk's office is responsible for keeping.

When does the 10 years start?

From the final permit action. Not from the day the application was filed, and not from the day the fee was paid. If a permit is issued in one year and the final inspection closes it two years later, the retention period runs from the closure. Section 1 says this in so many words because the mistake is easy to make.

Why is correspondence different?

Ordinary Planning & Building correspondence is kept for 3 years under section 2. But correspondence that forms part of a permit decision is not ordinary. A letter that explains why a corner-lot review was required, or a resident's written withdrawal, belongs to the permit file and follows its 10-year rule. The test is whether the letter was part of the decision, not where it happened to be filed.

What stops the clock?

Section 3: a pending records request, a review or a preservation instruction suspends disposal of the relevant records. I confirm the hold and record its scope before any scheduled destruction proceeds. A resident who files a records request for a permit file is, as a side effect, keeping that file in existence until the request closes.

What counts as disposal?

A logged review and an authorisation. Section 4 is blunt about the opposite: moving a file out of an active folder is not disposal. Disposal is recorded with the series, the period covered, the governing rule, the reviewer and the disposal date. Anything less is a file that has been misplaced, not a file that has been lawfully destroyed.

Does keeping a record mean releasing it?

No. Section 5 separates retention from disclosure. A retained document may contain protected details that need review before release under the Public Records Request Procedure. And the reverse is true: a document may be retained precisely because it is no longer current. The 2025 residential fence counter handout is kept in the archive, marked superseded, so staff can explain why a resident remembers a seven-foot threshold. Its version and effective-date labels stay attached so an archived source is never mistaken for current counter guidance.

How does this connect to the permit desk?

In two places. First, the desk's written refund decisions and payment references go into the permit file and inherit its retention. Second, the desk's inquiry log, which records which source and edition were discussed with each resident, is the kind of correspondence that may become part of a decision. The desk logs the source title, section, date and next action under version 3 of the intake procedure, and that habit is what makes the retention rule workable later.

What should a resident know?

That a permit file about your property exists for 10 years after the final action, that you can ask for it through the County Clerk, and that asking keeps it in existence while the request is open.

Why not keep everything forever?

Because a schedule that keeps everything is a schedule nobody can defend when a record is missing. Fixed periods, a fixed start point and a logged disposal mean that the absence of a record can be explained as well as its presence: this series, this period, this rule, this reviewer, this date. Section 4 of the schedule turns disposal into a decision with a record of its own. An archive that grows without limit is also harder to search, which slows every records request that follows.

Who is responsible for the schedule?

The County Clerk's office confirms holds and oversees disposal reviews; Planning & Building keeps its own files in order under the schedule. When the two disagree about whether a record is ordinary correspondence or part of a permit decision, the longer rule applies until the question is settled, because a record kept too long is recoverable and a record destroyed too early is not.

What happens to a superseded form after version 3?

The earlier intake form is kept with its version label, as the 2025 fence handout is, so that an inquiry log entry citing it still makes sense when read later. Retention keeps the context; the effective-date label keeps the context from being mistaken for current guidance.

Q&A

The questions people ask about record retention are answered below.

Last updated 1 October 2026.