The question this answers
Plain English: the words that turn up in a dispute
Twelve words that get used as though everyone knows them. Each one says what the thing is and what it looks like on paper. None of them says what it means for you — that isn’t a question a glossary can answer.
These are the terms used across The Case File. Each entry links back to the worked cases it appears in, so you can see the word doing its job in a real record rather than sitting on its own.
Repairs and servicing
Words that turn up when something is taken away to be fixed and comes back.
Job number
The reference a repairer puts on one piece of work.
- What it looks like
- A short code on the docket, the invoice or the confirmation message. Sometimes a new one each visit; sometimes the same one reused when an item comes back.
- What it does in a record
- It ties a photo, a message and an invoice to the same visit. Whether each visit got its own number or one number was reused is itself worth recording — copy it exactly as printed rather than tidying it up.
Used in001 — A phone that came back three times
Job sheet
The repairer's own written description of what was done.
- What it looks like
- A line or two of description, the parts used, often a technician's name, sometimes a signature. Handed over at the counter, emailed, or held in the repairer's system.
- What it does in a record
- It is the other side's account of the same visit, written on the day. Keeping it means a record carries two descriptions of one event instead of one. A repairer's copy does exactly the same work in the other direction.
Used in001 — A phone that came back three times
Itemized receipt
A receipt that splits the amount into parts rather than showing one total.
- What it looks like
- Separate lines — labor, parts, call-out — each with its own amount, rather than a single figure at the bottom.
- What it does in a record
- It dates the work and says what the money was for. A single total dates a payment and nothing else. Where an item goes back more than once, itemized receipts are what let a reader see whether the same part was touched twice.
Used in001 — A phone that came back three times
Same-fault repeat
When something goes back for what looks like the problem it went in for last time.
- What it looks like
- Nothing, on its own. There is no document called this. It is a pattern that only appears once several visits sit next to each other with their dates.
- What it does in a record
- The phrase is only useful if each visit carries its own date, reference and description in the words used at the time. Writing "repeat fault" in your own log adds a judgment; writing what was reported and what came back lets the dates do it. Read the other way, the same run of records is a repairer's account of what they were told each time.
Used in001 — A phone that came back three times
Notes, complaints and what you can count
Words about the record itself — when it was written, and what it can carry.
Contemporaneous note
A note written at the time, or close to it, rather than later from memory.
- What it looks like
- A line in a diary, a note on a phone, a message to yourself, a text to someone else describing what was going on while it was going on.
- What it does in a record
- What makes a note contemporaneous is the day it was written, not the day it describes. A note made the same night and a note made much later can describe the same event without being the same kind of thing, so a record should show which it is.
Used in002 — Accused of the noise, from the other side of the fence
Reconstruction
An account put together afterwards from whatever is left — photos, messages, receipts, memory.
- What it looks like
- A list of dates and events written in one sitting, long after the events themselves.
- What it does in a record
- A reconstruction is not worthless and it is not a note made at the time. The useful thing is to label it as one. A record that shows which entries were written on the day and which were assembled later is saying something true about itself; mixing them silently makes the whole thing harder to read.
Used in002 — Accused of the noise, from the other side of the fence
Complaint record
A written trace that a complaint was made.
- What it looks like
- The email, the submitted form, the acknowledgment, the reference number, the letter — whatever exists in writing rather than in someone's memory of a phone call.
- What it does in a record
- For the person raising it, it dates the complaint. For the person it was raised about, the same document dates the day they were first told. One piece of paper, two uses, and both sides usually want it.
Used in002 — Accused of the noise, from the other side of the fence
Duration log
A record of how long something lasted, not only that it happened.
- What it looks like
- A start time and an end time, written down while it was happening or straight afterwards.
- What it does in a record
- "Noise at night" and "noise from 11:40pm to 1:15am" are different entries. The second can be counted; the first can only be described. Someone answering a complaint has the same reason to write down the time the music went off.
Used in002 — Accused of the noise, from the other side of the fence
Building and trade work
Words that turn up when work on a property is under way and something changes.
Stage payment
A payment made when an agreed part of the work is reached, rather than all at once.
- What it looks like
- A schedule of stages set out at the start, then invoices that refer back to it by name.
- What it does in a record
- It dates two things at once: the money, and somebody's position that a stage had been reached. Where that position and the photographs from the same week don't agree, the disagreement is part of the record.
Used in003 — A bathroom that stopped halfway
Scope change
A change to what the work was going to be.
- What it looks like
- A conversation on site. A text. A revised quote. Very often nothing at all — which is the ordinary case, not the unusual one.
- What it does in a record
- Scope changes are the thing most often agreed out loud and written down by neither side. Whoever did write something that day — owner or builder — holds the only dated account of it.
Used in003 — A bathroom that stopped halfway
Variation
The written version of a scope change — a document setting out what changed.
- What it looks like
- A numbered variation, a revised quote, or an email that does the same job without using the word.
- What it does in a record
- It is dated, it is usually numbered, and it says what it replaced. Where no variation exists, the record is whatever each side happened to write at the time instead — which is why the messages from that week matter more than they look.
Used in003 — A bathroom that stopped halfway
Progress photograph
A photo taken to show the state of the work on a particular day, rather than to show a problem.
- What it looks like
- Wide shots of the same areas, taken again and again, usually boring.
- What it does in a record
- Its value is the date and the repetition. One photo of a problem shows a problem. The same corner photographed each week shows when it changed. Builders take them for the same reason owners do, and the ones taken before something is covered up can't be taken again.
Used in003 — A bathroom that stopped halfway
These entries describe what things are and what they look like. They don’t say what any of it means for a particular situation, and nothing here is legal advice.