The Case File

Disputes pulled apart, one record at a time. What was logged, what each entry did, what was missing, and how it ended.

Ordinary disputes over ordinary amounts — the kind most people are actually in. Both sides of each one: raising it and answering it.

Every case here is a worked example. Made-up people, made-up amounts. The way the records are built is the real part.

CASE 004

CURRENT

Renting · answering a claim

A withheld deposit, from the landlord's side

$1,450 held back on a $2,000 deposit. One side had photo pairs twenty-one months apart; the other had a recollection.

10 items
21 months
3 gaps found

CASE 003

Contractors · raising it

A bathroom that stopped halfway

$6,200 paid, three weeks of nothing. The record that mattered turned out to be the group chat nobody thought to save.

18 items
5 months
2 gaps found

CASE 002

Neighbors · answering a complaint

Accused of the noise, from the other side of the fence

Seven complaints over four months. What the accused neighbor had was a work calendar, and it did more than he expected.

21 items
7 months
4 gaps found

CASE 001

Money & services · raising it

A phone that came back three times

$340 repair, same fault each time. Nine items over six weeks, and the whole thing rested on keeping the job numbers.

9 items
6 weeks
1 gap found

We don't pick a side

Half these cases are written from the side answering the claim. Landlords, contractors and tenants all end up needing the same thing: a record made at the time.

We don't say who was right

No statute, no advice, nothing about what you can claim. What the record held and what it didn't — that's the whole subject.

We show the gaps

Every case lists what was missing. A record with holes in it is the normal case, and it's more useful to read than a perfect one.

Worked examples · no real person’s case · no statute cited · education on documenting, not legal advice