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Gov. Code, § 26205.1 · Chapter 13. Miscellaneous Powers

Gov. Code, § 26205.1

Verbatim from the official edition

Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)

(a) The county officer having custody of nonjudicial public records, documents, instruments, books, and papers may cause to be destroyed any or all of the records, documents, instruments, books, and papers if all of the following conditions exist:

(1) The board of supervisors of the county has adopted a resolution authorizing the county officer to destroy records, documents, instruments, books, and papers pursuant to this subdivision. The resolution may impose conditions, in addition to those specified in this subdivision, that the board of supervisors determines are appropriate.

(2) The county officer who destroys any record, document, instrument, book, or paper pursuant to the authority granted by this subdivision and a resolution of the board of supervisors adopted pursuant to paragraph (1) shall maintain for the use of the public a photographic or microphotographic film, electronically recorded video production, a record contained in the electronic data processing system, a record recorded on optical disk, a record recorded by any other medium that does not permit additions, deletions, or changes to the original document, or other duplicate of the record, document, instrument, book, or paper destroyed.

(3) The record, paper or document is photographed, microphotographed, reproduced by electronically recorded video images on magnetic surfaces, recorded in the electronic data processing system, recorded on optical disk or reproduced on film or any other medium that is a trusted system and that does not permit additions, deletions, or changes to the original document and is produced in compliance with Section 12168.7 for recording of permanent records or nonpermanent records.

(b) Paragraphs (2) and (3) of subdivision (a) do not apply to records prepared or received other than pursuant to a state statute or county charter, or records that are not expressly required by law to be filed and preserved.

For the purposes of this section, every reproduction shall be deemed to be an original record and a transcript, exemplification, or certified copy of any reproduction shall be deemed to be a transcript, exemplification, or certified copy, as the case may be, of the original.

(c) The county clerk having custody of the original or a copy of the articles of any corporation may cause the destruction of any or all the documents. “Articles” includes the articles of incorporation, amendments thereto, amended articles, restated articles, certificate of incorporation, certificates of determination of preferences, dissolution certificates, merger certificates, and agreements of consolidation or merger.

(d) Notwithstanding any other provision of this section, destruction of the original records, papers, or documents is not authorized when the method of reproduction pursuant to this section is reproduction of electronically recorded video images on magnetic surfaces unless a duplicate videotape of the images is separately maintained. A duplicate copy of a record contained in the electronic data processing system, on optical disk, or on any other medium that does not permit additions, deletions, or changes to the original document shall also be separately maintained.

Notes and commentary — not statutory text

History

Amended by Stats. 2000, Ch. 569, Sec. 5. Effective January 1, 2001.

Source of truth

Edition
As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
Official file
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=GOV&sectionNum=26205.1.
Text hash
sha256 410b31242a88e8264ad47ac8e429cc3a2ebc07b40c178df77bce01d03513b9bf
Composed by
compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section

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Procedural information only. Not legal advice and not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Confirm the current text with the official publisher before relying on it.