Say, I am writing an email to higher level officer of the other department on behalf of my boss about some important matter discussed with my boss and asks for his consent by reply email.
We want his response by reply email that we had discussed and initiating the action based on the discussion.
Should I write "I request your consent by reply email" or " I request your confirmation by reply email"?
here I do not actually want his permission or approval but a response to have in records.
If you do not want or need his permission or approval, then you also don't need his consent—which means the same thing.
It may be that you're simply looking for his acknowledgement.
For instance:
It has been decided that your office will be painted on Monday. As such, you should work somewhere else that morning.
This could be followed up with:
I want to make sure this doesn't catch you by surprise next week, so please let me know that you've read this.
Assuming that you have sent this to him in an email message, it's assumed that he will reply in a similar fashion.
Should he do something unexpected like call you and say, "Yes, that's fine," then you could actually say to him, "Could you please send me an email confirmation? I just need it for our records."
If the email is short, you can simply add the following sentence to the bottom of the email"
Please confirm by return email that you have received this message.
This is not an uncommon request and should not cause any misunderstanding.
If the email is long (more than three or four paragraphs), to ensure that it is not overlooked, you can use the same sentence but write it at the top of the email.
