Dan's Desk

Corporate Records: Nobody Keeps Them; Every Company Needs Them

Written by Dan Gallatin | Oct 1, 2020 2:32:00 PM

Annual meeting minutes, ledgers of membership interests, who holds what role on the board of governors, who is an officer — all of these legally significant items should be captured in your corporate records. But, in my experience about 1% of companies actually have the records.

To some extent it is understandable. Your company is just 1 person, no possible competing ownership interests, so why create paper? You do it in case the situation that the court of appeals just addressed over an electrician's company in Dakota County went through. That company failed to document any of its members and went through substantial litigation over ownership.

The most difficult part is getting the papers in place. Once that is done you just have to update them. Once the papers are done you have substantial evidence to address later disputes. Let's get 'em done!