Asked 9 months ago - New York, NY
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Most brokerage firms only keep electronic copies of checks for about seven years.
If a brokerage firm makes a check payment for a trustee and the electronic copy is no longer available, what serves as a source document for that payment and for the information found in a formal or judcial accounting? What proof can be requested if the electronic copy and a hard copy of a check payment is no longer available?
Do brokerages which make payments out of trust funds keep a check register to show who the payments were made to and when the payments were made?
With exceptions, most brokerage firms are required to keep documents for 6 years under Rule 17a-5. What you will probably need to is request that the broker/dealer provide an account history, which should show the acitivities and money flowing in and out of the account. Hopefully you will see references to checks drawn and deposited to a bank, where you can gather further informaiton.
This is a strange question. The trustee is obligated to keep copies of relevant records and cannot just expect that the brokerage firm will store records forever. Brokerage firms ordinarily keep records like this for longer than 7 years. but ultimately the trustee has the obligation to keep appropriate records. Blaming a brokerage firm in a situation like this seems unreasonable.
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