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How to write a document correctly
The response to the claim is created in free form, subject to certain rules for writing such documents. That is, the appeal must be written in an official business style. It should not contain rude expressions, insults or everyday language. Corrections and errors are not allowed in the response to the complaint. Before sending it, you should carefully analyze the document for any inaccuracies.
The written answer must be reasoned, complete and concise. All arguments must be accompanied by correct references to relevant regulations, departmental instructions, rules and other acts that may come as a surprise to the author of the complaint.
The response must certainly contain all the required details that give the document legal force.
If the response is created by a legal entity, then it must be written on official letterhead.
Sample debt repayment letter
This Debt Notice can be used to notify one party to an agreement (Creditor) that the other party (Debtor) has a debt under such agreement.
The proposed draft Notification is suitable for notifying a counterparty’s debt under any type of civil contract.
The developed document template allows the Lender to determine, in particular:
(i) the amount owed;
(ii) the final date of its repayment or the repayment schedule, if the Debtor will repay the resulting debt in separate tranches (parts);
(iii) the types of sanctions that may be applied to the Debtor in connection with the existence of an outstanding debt.
How to use the document
The document can be used by government agencies, legal entities of the public or private sector, individuals or individual entrepreneurs who act as Creditors under any agreements and wish to notify their counterparties of existing debt.
The proposed draft Notification may be sent by the Creditor as early as the next calendar day after the deadline for the counterparty to make payment or current payment under a previously concluded agreement.
Do I need to answer?
In situations where the debt is not paid for an extended period, debtors may receive a collection claim created in accordance with current legislation. It should not be ignored, because otherwise a lawsuit may be filed in court. Sending an appeal demanding payment of debt is a pre-trial method of resolving a dispute.
The creditor will wait for a response to the sent claim and further fulfillment of its obligations. If all his demands are not met, a statement of claim and the start of a legal battle may follow. To avoid such a course of events, it is better to resolve the conflict peacefully.
Claims are of the following nature:
- must be presented;
- subject to presentation under an existing contract;
- subject to the expression of will of either party.
Note! A claim in civil proceedings does not act as a mandatory element, unlike arbitration proceedings. Therefore, submitting a claim is the creditor’s step towards resolving the conflict situation before the court hearing. You need to respond to such a message in any case.
The purposes for which the creditor sends a claim are:
- encourage the debtor to repay the debt, preferably pre-trial;
- obtain the right to appeal to a judicial authority;
- intimidate the debtor.
Depending on the purpose sought by the complainant, the type of response will depend. It can be created according to a specific template.
For example, a claim from a customer under a contract agreement most often focuses on eliminating operational deficiencies. The parties have the right to indicate in the contract that the response is mandatory, but responsibility, as a rule, is not prescribed. Therefore, the requirement must be fulfilled immediately.
Attention! Our qualified lawyers will assist you free of charge and around the clock on any issues. Find out more here.
How to respond to a claim from housing and communal services
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Who can make a claim for payment?
Claims for payment of debt may be made by:
- credit institutions for loans;
- utility organizations;
- mobile operators in the presence of debt for services provided;
- microfinance firms in case of loans;
- pawnshops;
- institutions involved in public transport.
Debt obligations can appear not only between organizations, but also between citizens.
In certain cases, the response to a claim is an acknowledgment of the debt. This kind of response takes the form of a letter of guarantee for payment when one of the parties does not fulfill its financial obligations.
A letter of guarantee allows you to perform the following tasks: informs the counterparty, the creditor about problems with funds, acts as a basis for revising the debt payment schedule, and is a confirmation of future repayment.
Who to write to and when
A debt collection claim is sent to the party that has not fulfilled its obligations under the contract. The document is also required if the terms of cooperation are changed unilaterally without payment. It is often compiled when there are accounts receivable.
A pre-trial claim is sent in writing in several cases:
- The letter is necessary if there is no and ambiguous expression in the cooperation agreement regarding the deadlines for completing the work and depositing funds.
- A claim is made when a payment is classified as a business activity, the amount of which exceeds 15,000 rubles. In this case, there should be no reconciliation report.
- The document is one of the forms of pre-trial agreement. It is required to be drawn up to enable the debtor to repay the debt without trial.
- A claim must be filed if it is necessary to collect penalties or fines in addition to the principal debt. The amount of allowances should not exceed ten basic units.
According to Russian legislation, entrepreneurs have the opportunity to draw up a document if the rights of one of the parties to cooperation are violated. If this clause is absent in the contract, you should still resort to using a letter before filing a lawsuit. You can try to avoid wasting time and money on litigation.
Also, an agreement that is drawn up at the time of cooperation may necessarily contain a clause on drawing up a letter, and in this case, before going to court, it is necessary to draw up a document and send it to the debtor
Extrajudicial foreclosure of pledged property is possible only if the relationship between the parties is notarized.
Who makes up the answer?
The response to the claim is created by the subject to whom it is directed. The creation of the official response is usually the responsibility of the organization's in-house lawyer, but is signed by the organization's manager. A citizen may also ask a legal advisor to prepare a response.
The answer must be prepared so that the case does not reach the court, since in court the defendant may have to return the costs incurred for the trial and the penalty.
Response Content Forms
The addressee of the claim has several options for how to respond to the document received:
- satisfy in full. In such a situation, the text must state that the complaint sent by the creditor has been accepted, the monetary demands indicated in it are legal and will be fulfilled at the specified time and in the required amount;
- satisfy in part. The claim is recognized only in part, and a letter is sent to the creditor setting out other conditions;
- refuse completely. This is done in situations where the creditor's demands for the return of funds are unfounded due to certain clauses of the agreement or provisions of the law. The response should include specific references to regulations, results of examinations and other documents. At the end, the author of the complaint should be invited to contact the court.
When drawing up a response, the main task is to express an opinion regarding the claim expressed by the opposite party and present it with your decision.
Buyer's claim
In essence, the buyer’s expressed dissatisfaction with the completed transaction, i.e. purchase. It can be oral or written. In the form of a complaint or demand. It represents a proposal (demand) to resolve disagreements without outside interference.
The complaint, as such, is most often of an emotional nature. This is the dissatisfaction expressed by the buyer, in particular, with the quality of service. Property relations, in this case, do not arise, since it does not contain requirements for the exchange of goods or the return of money.
We are more interested in claims containing demands that entail the resumption of property relations that ended at the time of receipt of the goods (exchange, refund, etc.). These are the questions that need to be answered competently, legally, verified and correctly.
In what cases are claims rejected?
The addressee of the complaint has several options on how to respond to it. In what cases does the debtor have the right to reject the demands put forward?
Note! There are four reasons :
- absence of the debtor’s fault in the circumstances leading to the failure to fulfill obligations. Such situations are described in the “Force Majeure” clauses of the agreements;
- failure to fulfill an obligation occurred due to a situation that, although not force majeure, cannot be controlled;
- the addressee is incorrectly specified;
- the demands made by the creditor are unlawful or were not recorded in the agreement.
In certain situations, despite a correctly written response to a claim, it is not possible to avoid litigation. But the very fact that the answer was provided within the required time frame will be another plus for the debtor. Otherwise, he would have to pay all legal costs even if the outcome was positive.
Sample letter for repayment of overdue debt
Limited Liability Company "Ibles"
legal address 153000, st. Teatralnaya, 141, Ivanovo.
Fact. address 153004, lane. Semenovskogo, 10, Ivanovo.
January 28, 2014 No.
To the head of BRANCH No. 17 FKP "Trade Department of the Moscow Military District"
155043, Teykovo, Ivanovo region, Gvardeyskaya st., 1
Ibles LLC, represented by the director, Leskova L.I., acting on the basis of the Charter, asks you to repay the debt to our company in the amount of 64,274.73 rubles (Sixty-four thousand two hundred seventy-four rubles seventy-three kopecks), confirmed by the reconciliation act as of January 28 .2014.
Writing deadline
According to current legislation, a response to a claim for repayment of debt obligations must follow within the established time frame, which is adopted in accordance with the following principles:
- as a rule, complainants use Article 452 of the Civil Code and set the minimum time for drawing up a response to a pre-trial complaint regarding a debt obligation - this is thirty days from the time of its filing;
- in exceptional cases, when creating a response to a claim requires a long time due to various circumstances, the applicant has the right to fix his own individual time period in the text of the document itself, for example, forty-five or sixty days;
- when the term in the claim is not fixed, but only the date of its preparation, then it is recognized as minimal by law, that is, equal to one month. If the sender does not even indicate the date of writing the document, it is considered void and has no legal force;
- if an employee calls on the head of the organization to pay arrears of wages, the response time to such an appeal can be reduced to seven days. The same applies to those situations where one of the parents forces the ex-spouse to pay his child support obligations.
The period during which the applicant waits for a response must be justified and fully justified by the number of actions for drawing up a counter document.
Later, if the judge decides that the plaintiff gave too little time to the debtor to respond, he will have the right to reject the claim due to a violation of the pre-trial dispute resolution mechanism.
FAQ
Despite the simplicity of drawing up this kind of documents, in practice quite often controversial issues arise in this area, and therefore we will try to resolve the most relevant of them.
Why do I need a response to a claim?
The response to the letter of claim is one of the evidence in the case when the dispute has to be resolved in court
In addition, the importance of such paper lies in the fact that the other party to the relationship shows its interest in the problem that has arisen, and therefore takes into account the interests of its counterparty, which has a rather positive effect on maintaining partnership relations in business
Do I need to agree with the claim?
There is no definite answer to this question, since everything depends on the specific circumstances of the case. If the demands specified in the claim letter are based on the law, then refusal to satisfy the demands can lead to a long legal battle.
If the applicant’s position contradicts the essence of the existing obligation or legal norms, then, of course, you should not agree with this.
Is it possible not to respond to a complaint?
The current legislation of the Russian Federation does not contain a direct rule that would oblige anyone to give answers to the claims made. At the same time, it is necessary to understand that in a number of cases, expressing an opposing position on the substance of the stated requirements allows you to defend your own interests.
In conclusion of the issue under consideration, it must be said that the preparation of responses to letters of claim must obey certain document flow rules. At the same time, there are no legislative norms regulating this process in the Russian Federation.
