The Five Dates Every Dispute Has
Most disputes come down to a small number of dates, and the people who handle them well are the ones who wrote those dates down early. Here is the set worth capturing, and what each one governs.
General information, not legal advice. Which dates matter, and what follows from them, depends on your jurisdiction and the type of dispute.
One: when it happened
The incident date. It anchors the limitation period under the default rule, and it is the date everything else is measured against. Establish it from a record — an invoice, a message, a report — rather than from memory, because memory drifts and the difference of a week can matter.
Two: when you found out
Distinct from the first, and sometimes much later. Where a discovery rule applies, this is what starts the clock instead, and the statute of limitations calculator takes both dates for that reason.
Record it even if you think it is the same as the incident date, because whether the two differ is precisely what a discovery-rule argument turns on.
Three: the deadline
The incident or discovery date plus whatever period applies. Calculate it early, and calculate it from the earliest date that could plausibly apply — the pessimistic version is the one that protects you.
Remember that month arithmetic clamps: one month from 31 January is 28 February — a span of 28 days, which is shorter than 30 days’ notice. If your period is expressed in months, the span in days is not a fixed number.
Four: when you asked
The date of your first written demand. It matters in more ways than people expect: some processes require an attempt to resolve matters first, some remedies only run from a demand, and in a security deposit dispute the correspondence trail is frequently the evidence.
Send it in writing even when a phone call would be easier, and keep proof of sending. An undated verbal request is nearly worthless later.
Five: when they were required to respond
Any deadline running against the other side — a notice period, a statutory return window, a date set in your own demand letter. The deposit deadline and notice period calculators both compute this kind of date.
This is the date that converts “they have not paid yet” into “they are late”, which is a materially different position.
Keep them in one place
A single dated file — a note, a folder, anything — with these five dates and the documents that establish each one. It takes minutes at the start and is nearly impossible to reconstruct two years later.
It is also the first thing a professional will ask for, and arriving with it makes an initial consultation considerably more useful than arriving with a narrative.
Calculate early, act earlier
The purpose of knowing the deadline is not to use all of it. Evidence degrades, witnesses become unreachable, and every process takes longer than expected.
Treat a computed deadline as the point past which nothing can be done, and plan to have acted well before it.