Dating the facts, keeping the proof
What you write down, in what order and in what form, decides whether a complaint can be checked: by whoever receives it, and by you, later.
The principle
What a date changes
A fact told without a date sounds like an impression: something apparently went wrong, one day, and nobody is quite sure which. The same fact with its date, and the document that confirms it, becomes an event that can be checked: placed on a timeline, measured against a deadline, set beside other documents.
Building that checkability takes neither an exceptional memory nor legal training. It takes one simple habit: writing down, as soon as something happens, its exact date and what makes that date provable. This page says how to build that chronology, what a document really proves, what to keep, and what to do when you have kept nothing.
A letter with no dates is an opinion.
The method
Building the chronology
A useful chronology is not the full story of a case: it is a short list, in order, of what happened and how you can prove it. Five habits are enough to build it.
01
One fact, one line
Note every event that counts separately: an order placed, a call made, a reply received, a silence that goes on. A vague event, such as “several reminders”, in fact hides several that need telling apart.
02
The exact date, not the memory
The day, and the time if you can. “In March” is a memory, “on 12 March” is a date. An approximate but honest date is still better than false precision.
03
What proves that date
For each line, note how you know that date: a postmark, the timestamp on an email, the date printed on a receipt. A date you cannot attach to anything stays a bare assertion.
04
The facts, not the judgement
Describe what happened, not what you think of it. “The reply we were promised did not arrive” can be checked; a view about the other party's intentions never can.
05
Up to date, up to today
A chronology is never finished while the case is open. A silence that drags on also has a starting date: it goes in like any other fact.
The commonest confusion
Three dates, and usually one that counts most
One and the same step produces three different dates, and they are easily mixed up.
- The date of the fact: the day the problem occurred, the delivery that never came, the mistake on the statement, the breakdown.
- The date of sending: the day you sent your letter or your email about it.
- The date of receipt: the day the recipient was actually in a position to read what you sent.
It is often the third that counts most. A deadline you impose on somebody, to reply, to correct or to refund, can only reasonably start running from the moment that person was able to read the request. A letter that went one day and arrived a week later does not put the clock at the day of sending for whoever receives it.
Hence the value of keeping proof of receipt itself, not only of sending: an acknowledgement, a read confirmation, or any trace that the other party really did receive what you sent them.
The documents
What each document is worth
Not all documents prove the same thing, and none proves everything. Knowing what they prove avoids two mirror mistakes: setting aside a useful document because it looks weak, and relying on a document that does not say what you think it says.
| Document | What it proves | What it does not prove |
|---|---|---|
| A contract | What the parties agreed, as at the date it was signed. | That the commitment was then kept: a contract says what was promised, not what happened afterwards. |
| An invoice or a receipt | That a transaction took place, with its amount and its date. | That the goods or service invoiced were supplied as expected. |
| A dated screenshot | The state of a screen at a given moment, if the system date and time appear on it legibly. | Without that legible timestamp it proves almost nothing: an image on its own is easier to alter than people think. |
| An exchange of emails | Who wrote what, and when, thanks to a timestamp placed by the servers and hard to falsify. | That the message was read: an email sent is not an email received, still less an email opened. |
| A witness statement | What another person saw or heard, if they agree to write it down and sign it in their own name. | As much as a document written at the time of the events: a memory told afterwards weighs less than a contemporary record. |
A single document rarely convinces on its own. A chronology lining up several different documents, each dated, weighs more than any one of them taken alone.
Keeping things
What to keep, and for how long
A single file, on a single device, is not kept: it is merely not lost yet. What really protects a document is having a second copy of it, somewhere else.
- The original where there is one: the signed paper, not only a photo of it.
- A separate copy, off the device or the account that received it: a second folder, a printout, a backup elsewhere.
- One folder per case, in chronological order: a single folder, paper or digital, for everything touching the same complaint.
- The document itself, for as long as the case is not definitively closed, and a little beyond rather than exactly up to the limit.
How long a document has to be kept as a legal obligation depends on the kind of document and on the country: there is no single rule. What this page says holds anywhere: as long as a case is open, the documents relating to it stay useful.
The common case
If you kept nothing
The habit usually comes after the fact: people only think of dating and keeping once the problem gets worse, when some of the evidence has already gone. That lateness changes what you can prove, not whether you can act.
Look for indirect traces: a bank statement carrying the date of a payment, a phone bill showing a call, a message sent to somebody close that places the event in time without being direct proof of it. Ask too whether the other party, or a witness, kept a copy you no longer have.
Never invent a precise date you do not know: false precision turns against the whole letter as soon as it is contradicted. An uncertain date given as such, “early in the month, not sure of the day”, holds up better than manufactured exactness.
And start the chronology today, even if its beginning stays hazy. From now on, every exchange can be dated and kept properly: a chronology that is solid over its second half is better than no chronology at all.
Three neighbouring moves, each set out on its own page.
- The full method, the seven moves dating and keeping the proof is only one of the seven
- Sending it and keeping the proof what each way of sending is worth, and how to prove receipt
- The country modules when a retention period is set by a national text