Retirement Accounts exist to hold Certificates permanently removed from circulation and serve as proof that the corresponding Certificates are subject to a voluntary or compliance claim or otherwise removed from circulation. Once an Organization completes the retirement, they cannot later change the retirement reason. This prevents the Certificate from being subject to a double claim. If, however, the Organization contacts M-RETS in writing within 24-hours from the time the Organization indicated the reason for retirement, M-RETS may grant a variance.
M-RETS will grant a variance within the 24-hour notice period when there is no likelihood a Certificate was claimed to be retired for multiple reasons and M-RETS does not suspect any nefarious intent or impropriety. If M-RETS believes there is any chance of double counting, they shall deny the request for a variance.
If an Organization notices an error in the selected retirement reason outside the 24-hour window, the Organization may contact M-RETS ([email protected]) in writing and ask that M-RETS grant a variance.1 M-RETS shall review all requests made outside of the 24-hour window and may grant a variance if they determine that the request is made in good faith and: that the Organization submitted their request for a variance in writing within a reasonable amount of time after discovering the error, that there is a legitimate reason for the change, and that there is no likelihood a Certificate was claimed to be retired for multiple reasons. M-RETS may submit the variance request—or send an email outlining the circumstances—to a state or provincial regulator should there be concern compliance with the variance request could result in potential double counting.