How to get a new work book if the old one is lost by the employer or employee

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There is no need to panic if you lose your work book; it can be easily restored. But, unfortunately, you will have to spend time and effort.

Before restoring it, you need to think about why it was lost. All further actions are based on this. Both the employee and the employer must remember that they are responsible for the documents. If a personnel employee or other responsible person issued a work book not according to the rules, then he is responsible for its loss, and not the employee.

There are two options:

• Loss of a document by employee.
• The employer or the person responsible for storing the work record is to blame.

In the event that a citizen himself loses a document, the costs and responsibility fall entirely on his shoulders. But don’t be upset, in this case the restoration of the work record is still quite possible.

Getting a duplicate: where to start

Losing such an important document has serious consequences. After all, somehow the document needs to be restored and filled with correct information. What to do if you have lost your work book?

If an organization cannot provide a book due to its loss, it is in no hurry to take any action. To return the document, the hired worker himself must deal with the issues of registration.

First of all, the employee should write a statement stating the essence of the problem. You need to be guided by the law - clause 31 of the Rules approved by the Decree of the Government of the Russian Federation (No. 225 of April 16, 2003).

You should also be guided by the regulations:

1. Labor legislation, led by the Labor Code of the Russian Federation.
2. Departmental instructions and governing documents, in particular, Instructions for filling out the document (No. 69 of October 10, 2003).

If labor legislation regulates the general rights and obligations of the parties to a service contract in the event of loss of a work book, then departmental instructions disclose this issue in detail in relation to the rules that have developed in this particular organization or company.

The meaning of the book

This document is a strictly established form of a book. Currently, several of its samples are recognized as valid, since they were previously issued by the Soviet Union, and now by the Russian Federation. The last change was made in 2003. The book reflects the following information about the person:

• His education is indicated on the first page of the document.
• Number of years worked. Each working period is recorded in a book. According to this information, the employer calculates the person’s total length of service. The calculation of vacation and sick days depends on this amount.
• Positions held by a person. When registering a person for a job, the assigned position must be written down in the book. If it is subsequently changed, a corresponding entry is also made about this.
• Reasons for dismissal. An employee cannot be fired just like that, because his rights are protected by Labor legislation. For this reason, there are several main reasons that can be grounds for dismissal. They must be indicated in this document.
• Employer name. The full name of the organization in which its owner was employed must be indicated.
• Incentives and penalties. If any awards are awarded, an entry is made in this document. All reprimands must also be recorded, since in case of violation of discipline and other violations, the employer has the right to terminate the employment contract with the employee.

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All this information may be required in various life situations. A work record is requested when applying to a bank for a loan, when applying for various benefits, benefits, and pensions. And it will definitely come in handy when you find a new job. Often during interviews, managers make decisions about choosing a candidate based on his experience. And in most cases this document confirms it.

First steps in obtaining a duplicate

The process of restoring a book if lost can cause serious inconvenience.
After all, it reflects the most important data over a long period:

• work experience (total);
• work experience in a real company (in which the document was lost).

And this data needs to be obtained again. The guilty employer will not bother to make up for lost data. Therefore, the entire burden of this burden falls on the shoulders of the victim himself. The difficulty lies not only in requesting organizations of different forms of ownership, whose addresses and contacts have already been lost. The worst thing is when among them there are companies that have already ceased operations.

But don’t think that the guilty employer will remain idle. He must still help the employee in filing documents. This is stated in paragraph 7 of the Instruction, approved by resolution of the Ministry of Labor of the Russian Federation (dated October 10, 2003 No. 69).

In addition to the fact that the employer must help, he is responsible for the loss of such an important document. It is expressed in the form of strict sanctions and fines.

To find information about previous work experience, you must contact the following organizations:

1. State Archive.
2. Pension Fund.
3. Previous companies in which the employee worked (to confirm experience).
4. Other organizations.

This is usually done by the employee himself. But if there is a massive loss of work records, the employer himself is responsible for all issues of making a copy, in accordance with paragraph 34 of the Rules. In this case, a commission is assembled to deal with this problematic issue.

Procedure

To restore the TC you will need the following papers:

• An empty TC and an insert for it, if necessary.
• Employment contracts from previous places of work.
• Orders of dismissal, appointment of an employee, etc.
• Certificate from the Pension Fund of Russia.

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It’s good if a person has a copy of his work record. It is required to be certified by the HR department each time you change jobs.

The first step to restore a document is to draw up an application to the employer. The law does not provide clear instructions on how to prepare this application. It is drawn up in free form. Sent to the HR department of the last place of work. The new work book is issued by the employer on the basis of documents provided by the employee. You can confirm your activities and length of service using employment contracts and appointment orders. You can obtain documents from your previous places of work. To confirm your work experience you will need a certificate from the Pension Fund.

Important

To confirm your experience, you will need original documents.

A person can take care to simplify the recovery up front. To do this, you will need a copy of the work book, certified in accordance with all the rules. If the document is certified, the entries from the copy are simply transferred to a new book. The employee will not have to run around to their former places of work. This is the best option, since, with a lot of experience, not all records can be restored. Some jobs may simply no longer exist, as companies tend to close.

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Recovery through a multifunctional center (MFC)

The convenience of restoring employment in the MFC is that you do not need to independently contact each former employer. Moreover, some of the legal entities may already be liquidated.

There is no need to pay a state fee to restore your work record. This service is provided free of charge regardless of the method chosen.

There are two ways to visit the MFC to restore your work record:

• personal visit and waiting in an electronic queue;
• pre-registration online on the MFC website.

The second method is more preferable for those who do not have time to wait in line.

When you visit the MFC, you will be given an application form for the restoration of the document you need.

Fill in the blanks with legible handwriting.

Then give all the collected documents and the completed application to the specialist. A Center employee will tell you when to come next time to pick up the completed document.

The MFC will make a request to the archive, after which the labor records will be restored. This applies only to information that was officially transmitted by employers.

Restoring a book through the Pension Fund of Russia

Restoring a document through the Pension Fund is the easiest option. This is a free and quick procedure. Let's look at the recovery steps:

1. Drawing up an application for restoration of the Labor Code.
2. Submitting an application in person or by registered mail.
3. After 10 days, the Pension Fund sends a response indicating the period of the employee’s work, his length of service and the companies in which the person worked.

Important

Restoration through the Pension Fund is a method that has limitations. Personal records in the fund began to be kept relatively recently, and therefore not all data can be obtained this way. In particular, the Pension Fund stores information only for the last five years.

Restoration through the state archive

This method is relevant in the following circumstances:

1. Previous places of work are closed.
2. The Pension Fund does not have the required information.

In all other situations, it makes sense to use other methods, since restoration through an archive is a labor-intensive procedure. To obtain the required information, you must submit a written request. However, you need to be prepared for the fact that the answer will not come soon.

Important

If an employee worked on a rotational basis, then requests must be sent to regional archives.

Restoring a lost book through the Russian Pension Fund

In addition to the prepared documents, when applying to the Pension Fund, you need to have SNILS with you - a small green plastic card. Come to the branch of the Pension Fund of the Russian Federation according to your registration or place of residence.

The receptionist will give you an application form to fill out. Indicate in it the reason for contacting the fund and your contact information. Submit the prepared documents and application to the fund’s specialists. After this, you will be told when to come for your completed work book.

If the work experience is more than 15 years, information about the place of work may not be in the archive.

Restoration through court

One of the most reliable ways to restore a work record is to go to court.

The main disadvantage of this method is the need to pay for court services. The amount depends on the volume of work of the authority. Also, former employers may be left with a negative impression after participating in litigation.

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In the court at your place of residence, you need to fill out an application and submit the prepared documents. In the statement, indicate why the document was lost. Also list the names of previous employers and the title of your position when working for them.

The court will independently contact each legal entity. In case of liquidation of an enterprise, the court contacts witnesses - your former colleagues or representatives of the organization.

What to do if the book is lost and the enterprise is liquidated at the same time

It is very difficult to confirm work experience in a liquidated organization, or in several. You will need to contact the State Archive or the Pension Fund. You can also resolve the issue through the court. But the trial requires evidence.

They may be:

• testimony of witnesses - former colleagues, senior employees of such an enterprise;
• remaining payslips indicating position, place of work and salary;
• answers to requests from archival funds.

You will need to send a request to the state archive for information about previously operating organizations. If they refuse and do not provide the necessary data, you should file a lawsuit in which you petition the court to request the necessary documents on the grounds that it is impossible to do this on your own.

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What documents will be required

Even before contacting government agencies, you can start collecting the package of required documents to restore your work record.

• Passport – needed to identify your identity.
• Blank work book - it will be filled out at the place of application. You can buy it at a stationery store. Check for watermarks to avoid purchasing a fake.
• A copy of the old work report - if available. Perhaps the photocopy was needed to receive some government services, and you made an extra copy.
• Contracts with employers - if you don’t find documents, try to remember the names of the legal entities for which you worked. Try contacting them online or by phone and ask them to send copies of documents.
• Information about transfers and appointments - these documents confirm your movement up the career ladder within one company.
• Information about work experience can be obtained from the Pension Fund.

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If the old work book contained only a couple of entries that are not particularly important for your future career, you don’t have to restore the work book. Just when applying for a new job, ask for a new work book.

There is another option in which it is not necessary to collect documents. Contact your last employer to restore your work record. In this case, the new employment record will indicate the total length of service and only the last position held. To do this, write an application for a duplicate document to replace the lost one. In the appeal, indicate the basis for the appeal (clause 31 of the Rules for maintaining and storing work books), put the date and signature with a transcript. Within two weeks, you will be given a new document without any notes about past work achievements. If you need this information, you will have to personally visit past places of work.

Responsibility of the employer in connection with the loss of the book

In case of loss of the book, the employer bears financial responsibility.

In case of primary loss, in accordance with paragraph 1 of Article 5.27 of the Code of Administrative Offenses of the Russian Federation, the following fines are provided:

If a document is lost more than once, financial liability becomes stricter:

The same fines are provided if the employer made many mistakes when restoring the work book.

Who will issue the duplicate?

A person who has lost his work book cannot restore it on his own, even if he is not currently in an employment relationship. In this case, issuing a duplicate is the responsibility of his last employer, regardless of how long ago the employment contract was terminated. If the citizen is an employee of any organization, then the personnel department of this organization will issue a duplicate, regardless of whose fault the loss occurred.

In order to receive a duplicate work book, a person needs to write an application about this, and on its basis a new document is issued. The legislation gives 15 days for this, but in practice this may not be possible since it may take much longer to restore all the information.

How employers try to avoid punishment for losing a work record

Employers are trying in various ways to avoid liability for the loss of a book, so as not to pay fines or go to court.

They prefer to come up with excuses:

1. Blaming the work of the post office. Employers claim that they have already sent the work book by registered mail. They even provide documents confirming this. To avoid this situation, it is necessary to refuse consent to transfer such an important document in this unreliable way. If there are doubts about the reliability of the information provided about the sent document, you should request the tracking number in order to independently track the progress of the shipment. If this request is refused, you must immediately go to court.
2. Blaming the employee himself for the loss of the document. Then they claim that they handed over the document, but the employee did not sign for its receipt. This situation is clearly resolved through the courts. Witnesses will be requested and if they are caught lying, they will face criminal charges.
3. Documentary confusion.

The company may justify the impossibility of sending the work book due to confusion. But this explanation cannot be a valid reason. The employee who committed negligence must be identified and held accountable. And the company itself is obliged to send the document upon request or hand it over. The employee himself has the right, even in this resolved situation, to appeal the actions of the company, requests in a claim for compensation for moral damage caused by them (associated with worries about what happened, the inability to get a job, receive a pension, and so on).

Additional questions

What to do if your last job was liquidated

To get reinstated, you need to go to your previous employer. If this company was liquidated, then going to the Pension Fund or the archives is pointless, since the employee cannot independently make records of his work experience. The only way out is to go to court. A claim needs to be filed. It is the court that will handle access to archives and the Pension Fund. Based on the information received, a duplicate is issued.

Restoring a work book in case of loss or damage, if the employee previously worked in several organizations

Often employees bring a damaged document and ask how to restore the work book. If parts of the pages are missing due to a tear, the entries are incomplete and difficult to read, and the book is invalid. New entries cannot be made to it. If you continue to maintain such a work record, the GIT inspector may fine you. And the employee may have difficulties when assigning a pension.

In this case, the duplicate is drawn up by the last employer. Please fill out the “Job Details” section as follows. First, enter information about your total length of service for the period prior to joining your organization, if you have supporting documents. Do not enter the company name.

Then make notes about your work in the company. Enter information about transfers and dismissals based on available documents: employment contract, agreements, personal card and others. Enter information about awards in the appropriate section.

Keep in mind that they must be certified, since it will not be possible to restore the work record otherwise. Take into account the specifics of restoring a work book if it is lost, if the employee worked in another company that was liquidated. The process is not much different, but it may be difficult to find the archives where the documents are stored. You must provide assistance, which follows from paragraph 32 of Rules No. 225, paragraph 11 of Rules No. 1015, paragraph 7.2 of Instructions No. 69.

Is it possible to get a new work book?

Two options are allowed:

• Issue a new work book (LC). This can be done with a short period of work, when the document is lost due to the fault of the employee, and he does not want to waste time collecting certificates. In this case, information about insurance contributions will be stored in the Pension Fund (PF) database. They will be taken into account when entering a well-deserved retirement. If the Pension Fund does not have information about any work intervals, they will not be taken into account when applying for a pension.
• Restore a lost TC, that is, get a duplicate. This option will reduce problems when retiring or getting a job.

The work book contains the following information:

• Last name, first name, patronymic of the owner.
• Date of his birth.
• Information about education.
• Profession (specialty) of the owner.
• Date of completion.
• The seal of the organization that issued this document, the signature of the person responsible for issuing the books.
• Information about all places of work. This includes the date of admission and dismissal, a link to the documents on the basis of which this was done, etc.

When can a duplicate of a lost work book be issued?

Troubles that can happen with work books include:

• loss by the employee himself;
• its loss by the employer with whom it was kept;
• its unusability due to mechanical and similar damage (torn, burned completely or partially, filled with liquid, etc.);
• mass loss due to emergency incidents (the law specifically identifies such a case).

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In all these cases, the Rules require that a duplicate be drawn up (in fact, they regulate how to correctly restore a work book).

Note that if an employee is hired who does not have a work book and claims to have lost it, he is allowed to create a new one, and not write out a duplicate.

Similarly, in the situation of hiring a citizen with a damaged work book, you can issue a duplicate, or you can get a new one.

In other situations, the employer’s procedure has some differences.

This is handled by the HR department at the place where the application is submitted:

• Current work – for employed people.
• The last organization where a person worked was for the unemployed.

If after a few days the book is still not found, it is better to immediately begin processing its duplicate.

Attention! According to Art. 31 of Chapter 3 of the Decree “On Work Books”, the employer is obliged to issue it within 15 days from the date of receipt.

Several scenarios are possible:

1. The situation if the employee has not worked anywhere before this moment or worked unofficially is the simplest. The personnel officer draws up a duplicate based on the data from the employment order and other documents of his organization. You can read how to correctly make all the entries in Art. 7 “Features of filling out a duplicate work book” of the Resolution of the Ministry of Labor. Do not forget to provide supporting certificates to the employee; they will be very useful to him when applying for a pension.
2. If the employee has previously worked in different companies, the situation is more complicated. Here it is important not to lose a friendly relationship with a colleague, because in order to issue a duplicate, information from all previous places of work will be required. Many companies may refuse to send such certificates by mail, insisting that the employee come to them in person or the organization makes an official request to their company (the preparation of a duplicate may take a long time).
3. The most unpleasant option is if the old enterprise no longer exists. But the situation is not so tragic, although the restoration of labor will take much longer than in the two previous cases. When a company is reorganized or merged with another, all documents must be kept in the new company. Any organization in the process of its liquidation is obliged to deposit all personnel and accounting documents in the state archive. You can make a request to the state archive at the place of the company’s past existence. If there is no response or the papers have not been saved, you can contact the Pension Fund with the same request. True, this option is suitable only if the employee worked at this enterprise relatively recently, since registration of insured persons in the compulsory pension insurance system was introduced not so long ago.

An employer's actions when hiring a new employee without a technical qualification

A man came to get a job who had lost his work book, and he didn’t know how to restore it. If the employer is not interested in information about his previous places of work, he has the right not to send such an applicant to restore the information himself, but to accept him immediately with the creation of a new document. To do this, the applicant will have to write a statement stating that he has not had a TC before. In this case, restoration will not occur. In fact, such an employee will need information about the length of service in the future to apply for a pension, and he will still have to make a duplicate for himself and apply to the Pension Fund to restore the length of service.

If a new employee nevertheless brought a work book, but it turned out to be damaged and it is impossible to maintain it further, the employer will independently create a duplicate, thereby starting the restoration procedure, and transfer into it all possible information about the work from the old book.

How to fill out an application correctly

To get a new work book, you must first deal with the old one. The application is drawn up on behalf of the worker in the name of the employer or company. It should reflect information about the reason for which the document was lost and a request for a duplicate.

The circumstances of the case should be described as clearly and consistently as possible so that there is no ambiguous interpretation.

The text should be written correctly, without any corrections or strikethroughs. You must indicate the date of compilation and sign. It does not matter whether the application is written by hand or typed on a computer.

It should be addressed to the manager himself, and not to the head of the personnel department.
This reduces the risk of losing it or unsubscribing. If it is submitted to the office management department in person, then you should make sure that on the second copy the employee puts an acceptance mark, including the date, the name of the person accepting it, his position and seal (stamp).

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If sent by mail, such request should only be sent by certified mail with return receipt requested.

Employee actions

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If an employee has suspicions that the employer lost the document intentionally, he can contact the Labor Inspectorate. It makes sense to go to court only if the employee is sure that the organization deliberately lost the document. You can go to the court under the following circumstances:

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• The employer refuses to restore the book without explanation.
• The employer denies the fact of employing the citizen.

The court obliges the company to take care of issuing a duplicate.

Fact

The court is a last resort, since the measure involves wasting time and drawing up a claim. There is no need to pay a fee, since cases related to the Labor Code are not subject to fees.

What to do if you need to restore it yourself

In the event that a person was to blame for the loss of a work book, he must restore all the entries in it himself. To do this, it is necessary to go around all the enterprises where he previously worked and receive information regarding the length of service and position in the form of certificates. If all enterprises are located in the same city, then recovery may take only a week, but if a person previously worked in different cities, then much more time will have to be spent. But that's not all the problems.

It happens that the enterprise where a person previously worked was liquidated or underwent reorganization. In this case, the worries become even greater. In addition to the fact that the owner of the labor force will have to visit organizations, he will only be able to obtain information regarding liquidated enterprises in the archives. In this case, it may take a lot of time to find the required documentation. In some cases, the Pension Fund can help in finding the required data.

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It happens that even in the archives there is no information or a person cannot access the information. But even in this case one cannot despair. Everyone has the right to confirm their work activity, and if there is no information regarding the liquidated enterprise and the person’s work at it, then the court will help. This authority will send requests to all necessary government bodies, which will allow them to obtain confirmation of the person’s work and experience. It is very good if it is possible to involve former employees of a liquidated enterprise who could confirm the existence of the organization and the fact that the owner of the lost work book worked in it.

What to do if you yourself are to blame for the loss of the book

When moving, in a force majeure situation, anything can happen to the documents. If the employee himself has lost the book, he needs to start restoring it as soon as possible.

Then you need to go to your last place of work and fill out an application for re-receipt of the document. All former employers must also be contacted to confirm their work experience.

And if the previous company was liquidated, you will need to contact the State Archive.

You can also visit the Pension Fund. Then the employee will receive all the necessary information free of charge and within the established time frame.

Sources:

1. https://gosuslugigid.ru/moi-dokumenty/kak-vosstanovit-trudovuyu-knizhku-po-utere-v-mfc.html
2. https://classomsk.com/trudovoe-pravo/mozhno-li-vosstanovit-trudovuyu-knizhku-pri-utere.html
3. https://nsovetnik.ru/trudovaya_knizhka/kak_vosstanovit_trudovuyu_knizhku_pri_ee_utere/
4. https://glavkniga.ru/situations/s503075
5. https://mfc-list.info/kak-vosstanovit-trudovuju-knizhku.html
6. https://www.kdelo.ru/art/384286-kak-vosstanovit-trudovuyu-knijku-18-m8
7. https://grazhdaninu.com/trud/trud-knizhka/vosstanovit.html
8. https://www.m24.ru/library/passport-and-rights/20042017/356#1
9. https://spmag.ru/articles/vosstanovlenie-trudovoy-knizhki
10. https://opersonale.ru/kadrovyj-uchet-i-deloproizvodstvo/trudovaya-knizhka/kak-mozhno-vosstanovit-trudovuyu-knizhku-cherez-pensionnyj-fond.html
11. https://www.papajurist.ru/job/kak-vosstanovit-trudovuyu-knizhku-pri-utere/

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