What Is A Legal Notice?
An legal notice is a proper communication to an individual or entity informing them that you just intend to undertake legal proceedings in opposition to him/her. It’s a step taken earlier than filing a suit, and is supposed to warn the opposite social gathering that authorized motion could also be taken in opposition to him/her, in the event that they fail to adjust to some specified situation.
In What Cases Can We Send A Legal Notice?
The most common cases where I’ve engaged with my clients in sending legal notices is in cases of property disputes, Dishonour of Cheques, household disputes pertaining to asset distributions, husband-wife conflicts (as a warning earlier than taking legal motion in opposition to the partner), client complaints and cases the place wage/wage commitments are usually not met.
What Is The Process For Sending A Legal Notice?
Many a time, we have no idea the legal significance and that means of the phrases we usually use in an informal method. Partaking a professional lawyer helps whereas drafting a legal notice.
Excessive care is taken concerning the selection of phrases and language used, and the measures of warning about not admitting any truth that will later be denied to you in a court docket of regulation. As soon as an legal notice is dispatched, you can not make any modifications in it. Neither are you able to make any statement contradictory to what you may have already said within the discover, at a later interval. The discover is sent on a plain paper or on the letterhead of the lawyer.
- Join with a lawyer who has good drafting expertise. The notice can be despatched in any Indian language, though often, English is the popular alternative for my clients. The notice needs to be addressed to the particular person in opposition to whom you may have the grievances.
- In your consulting session with the lawyer, please clarify the knowledge intimately – together with the names of parties concerned, addresses, dates when commitments had been made and never honoured, challenges and points confronted, any earlier makes an attempt at dialogue, etc. Particularly in cases of husband-wife disputes, I’ve noticed {that a} legal notice usually brings the partner for negotiation. In many cases, disputes are resolved by way of counselling or mutual consent.
- Relying on the grievance, often, the legal professionals, on behalf of the client sending the disc over, stress on the necessity of a motion to be taken within the stipulated time frame to both fulfill the demand or search a reply.
- The notice is duly signed by each the client and the lawyer. It’s both sent via registered publish or courier, and the acknowledgement is retained. Often, a copy of the notice is retained by the lawyer.
- The expectation is that after the notice is obtained by the opposite social gathering, they are going to reply again. However, as an ordinary (and infrequently, the most effective) apply, the lawyer calls up the opposite social gathering in a while. Ethically, I consider that it’s a very good apply to observe. Particularly in circumstances of husband-wife conflicts, I often name up the particular person (to whom the discover is distributed), requesting to return up for counselling or a dialogue, and attempt to resolve issues out of court docket.
What Have You Do After Receiving A Legal Notice?
In case you aren’t the sender however have instead received a legal notice, the steps to be adopted are as follows:
- Unlike the standard advice, you needn’t at all times seek the advice of a lawyer after receiving a legal notice. You may decide to name up the party involved (who has sent you the discover) to amicably settle the matter and resolve the identical in the most effective pursuits of money and time.
- If you consider that the notice sent or the knowledge within the notice just isn’t correct, and it is advisable to contest and require authorized assist, strategy a professional lawyer who can take the mandatory actions. Step one (after reaching the lawyer) is to share your aspect of the story and the information with the dates and time when the occasions occurred. That is to assist your lawyer review the notice you may have obtained and draft a reply primarily based on the information collected from you.
- On this case too, the lawyer will send the reply to the notice by way of courier or registered post. A duplicate of the notice sent and received are each retained within the lawyer’s workplace, together with the acknowledgement receipts for all of the communications. Your lawyer will even typically talk with the lawyer of the opposite party to allow a clean move and check out resolving issues at your end.
- The alternate of legal notices often leads to the graduation of litigation between the events, because the party sending the notice might take recourse to civil/criminal law remedies.
Factors To Remember
The party being served with the lawsuit / notice is known as “the respondent” or “defendant”. A legal notice could also be responded to provided that it has advantage and needs to be replied to.
One of many easiest causes as to why legal notices are used offers with equity. It’s doable that the notice sent by the plaintiff might not attain the respondent; this may be because of change in tackle, location or details about the respondent that isn’t accessible to the plaintiff. To this point, I’ve not come throughout such a scenario, however there are positively sure authorized steps we are able to soak up these conditions.
If the notice has substance – and the facts stated therein, if litigated against in the court, may go against you – then do consult a qualified and reputed lawyer who practises within the points related to the notice being despatched and focus on it with them. For example, if the notice considerations property disputes, go to a civil lawyer. However, if the discover is concerning household disputes, go to a lawyer who practises family law – and so forth.
Relating to the query of whether or not to answer to the notice or not, go away it to your lawyer. Your preliminary session with the lawyer will enable you to understand if the notice must be replied to (or not), and what the fitting steps are to resolve the problem at hand.
In case the notice is transformed right into a swimsuit, it’s obligatory so that you can reply. Be sure that all of your information are in place – in order that the subsequent steps by your lawyer are advised in due course of action.
Legal notices are an important precept of the courts in providing fairness and due course of, by giving all of the events affected (by the lawsuit or authorized continuing) a discover of the legal procedure. No party can function in secret – and all court actions have to be obvious to all of the parties to the case.
In my expertise, particularly in matters of cheque defaults, family disputes and husband-wife conflicts, I’ve resolved matters earlier than they reached the court through counselling and arbitration/mediation and mutual understanding. Legal notices have played a really very important function right here. All of it depends on the way you draft it – the main target is on resolving the issue at hand and not to create tension.