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When a bankruptcy transaction or the division of a estate occurs, the law stipulates that the liquidator shall receive documents that are considered important in the transaction. The liquidator is responsible for documents in his possession, unless they have been delivered to a court or to a district commissioner and shall return them after the transaction is completed to the National Archives.

The same applies to courts, but the law stipulates that documents submitted in court must be kept in the archives of the relevant court until they are returned to the National Archives.

Legal sources:

• Article 80(1) of the Act on Bankruptcy and Other Matters No. 21/1991 and

• Article 51(1) of the Law on the Exchange of Dead Lives and Others No. 20/1991

• Article 13(2) of the Law on the Procedure of Civil Cases

Exchange managers who request the delivery of a non-functioning or defunct estate to the National Archives shall send a message to the address.

• The message must be accompanied by an electronic storage record.

• If more than one holding is to be delivered, a separate electronic list of the failing/defunct holdings to be delivered shall be completed.

• Note that farms are only accepted once the exchange is completed.

• The delivery of the insolvent or defunct estates will not take place until the National Archives have reviewed the storage register and other supporting documents, if applicable, and verified that they are satisfactory.

• You must make an appointment for the collection before you arrive at the National Archives.

Managers of the exchange should pay close attention to the following instructions on the completion of the documents of the failed and defunct holdings. Note that holdings are only accepted when the exchange is completed.

A. Packaging

B. Registration

Information on when the exchange ended is of paramount importance because of possible grist of court documents and the accounts of the farm.

Large amounts of documents generally accompany bankruptcies, but according to local law, they must be kept for seven years from the close of the relevant financial year:

• All books prescribed in the law,

• Accounting records and supporting documents, as well as letters

• Pictorial and message or their copies,

• Other data stored in electronic form, on microfilm or in another similar secure and secure way

However, undertakings that use cash machines are not required to keep internal logs for more than three years from the end of the relevant financial year provided that complete accounting and signed annual accounts are available.

Accounting documents may be discarded, therefore, in compliance with these provisions, provided that the accounting documents are not relevant to the exchange of the holding.

Legal Aid:

• Article 20(1) of Act on Accounting No. 145/1994

A fee shall be paid for the preservation and destruction of documents of bankrupt estates according to the National Archives tariff. These fees are:

• Carrying fee for each inch of paper documents or each gigabyte of electronic data

• Deletion charge for same data after 7 years

The fees are paid in one sitting upon the disclosure of the data and these costs are considered part of bankruptcy proceedings according to law.

The National Archives of Iceland’s fee list can be found here.

Legal Aid:

• Article 15, paragraph 9 of the Act on Public Archives.