A Letter before Claim - The Basics
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27 October 2011
A letter before claim should give concise
details of the matter to enable the Defendant to understand and
investigate the matter.
The letter should include the claimants
name and address, reasons why the Claimant is making the claim, the
facts, the remedies sought by the Claimant, if the remedy is financial
then the amount and how the amount was calculated and funding
arrangements which may have been made.
The Claimant should also list the
documents which he intends to rely on to prove the case against the
Defendant, provide details of which form of ADR the Claimant would
prefer (if any), state the response date, provide a response pack and
request documents which the Defendant may have which the Claimant
wishes to see.
Where the defendant is not legally
represented and the letter is to be sent directly to the Defendant the
Defendant should be referred to paragraph 4 of the Practice Direction
which concerns the courts powers to impose sanctions for failure to
comply with the Practice Direction. Also the Defendant should be
informed that ignoring the letter could result in an increase in the
Defendants costs.
The defendant should acknowledge the
letter before claim within 14 days.
The acknowledgement should state whether
an insurer is involved, it should provide a date for when a full
written response will be provided and request any further information
required.
By Owen Ross - Owen is a
trainee solicitor with Lawdit Solicitors and can be contacted through
email at owen.ross@Lawdit.co.uk.
About the Author
Lawdit
Solicitors offer services and advice for litigation,
commercial contracts, Intellectual Property and IT legal agreements. We
are experts in commercial law with a heavy emphasis on Intellectual
Property, Internet and e-commerce law. Lawdit is a member of the
International Trademark Association, the Solicitors' Association of
Higher Court Advocates and we are the appointed Solicitors to the
largest webdesign association in the world, the United Kingdom Website
Designers Association.
