Agreement to waive the right to go to court: a brief economic and legal analysis

The postulate of contract law is the freedom of contractual legal relations within the framework defined by law. By virtue of this postulate, counterparties can both present claims to each other under contractual obligations and formalize a waiver of the claim. Files in .DOC: Claim Waiver FormClaim Waiver Sample

Which claims receipt is legally binding and where will it be needed?

Many people are faced with the fact that the receipt ultimately has no weight.

Let's consider situations where a no-claims receipt is void:

1. The applicant is an incompetent citizen.
   If a person cannot control his actions or has mental illness, then his receipt will be invalid.
2. The receipt was written by another person, but was signed by the applicant
   . Through the court it is possible to prove the nullity of such a receipt. They can conduct a handwriting examination.
3. Under the law
   . For example, when dividing jointly acquired property, such a receipt will be void. According to the law, the property of the spouses will be divided equally.
4. In the absence of authority of the person who signed the receipt
   . An example is when the seal of a legal entity is affixed by an employee who does not have the right to do so. Only a director or founder can act on behalf of a legal entity.
5. When challenging a receipt in court.
   A citizen can refuse the receipt and prove through the court the guilt of another citizen, and return funds for the damage received.

Please note that even if no agreement was drawn up, in some cases the receipt will be valid.

We draw up an agreement on the absence of mutual claims under the contract

The agreement is written in free form, since there is no unified version. Important: the wording must be clear and unambiguous; you should not include colloquial vocabulary in the text. The style of the document should be formal and businesslike.

What needs to be indicated in the document:

1. The agreement is an annex to a previously concluded agreement. If the deal was oral, then the contract should not be mentioned in the text.
2. The name of the document, place and date of its preparation.
3. Information about the parties to the transaction. For a legal entity, indicate the name, who acts on behalf of the company, on the basis of what document. For individual entrepreneurs, indicate your full name and OGRNIP. For an individual, you need to write your full name and passport details.
4. The parties have fulfilled the terms of the previously concluded agreement, the work has been performed/services have been provided, and payment has been received.
5. The parties have no claims against each other regarding the quality of work/services, timeliness and completeness of payment.

At the end, details of the parties must be placed and their signatures must be affixed. From the moment of signing, the work is considered completed and payment received; the parties have no mutual claims.

Samples of receipts and waivers of claims

Here are examples of ready-made receipts and statements confirming the absence of claims:

Sample receipt to employer:

Sample receipt from an accident victim:

An example of a receipt from the person responsible for the accident:

General sample of a receipt for an accident:

Sample receipt if any agreement was concluded:

Example of a receipt for division of property:

Sample receipt confirming receipt of funds and absence of claims:

Failure limits

Waiving a claim should not be confused with terminating a dispute, although the two may well overlap.

Thus, satisfaction of the requirements of the claim is not grounds for abandonment of the claim. Satisfaction is the termination of a dispute in a pre-trial manner, which is confirmed by documents confirming the fulfillment of the requirements of the claim - receipts, checks, bank orders, invoices, etc.

A pure refusal of a claim is due to other circumstances - selfish or disinterested. Thus, the counterparty can forgive the second counterparty for minor shortcomings or small flaws, provided that the counterparties are connected by long-standing and reliable contractual legal relations.

For example, the delivery of goods of inadequate quality is grounds for filing a claim. The requirements of the claim can be different - replacement of goods, termination of the contract, payment of penalties, etc., and several requirements can be combined into a single claim.

Let's assume that Mir LLC received goods of inadequate quality from Kosmos LLC. In accordance with the terms of the contract, the buyer sent a claim to the supplier demanding replacement of the goods and payment of penalties. Cosmos LLC delivered high-quality goods in the shortest possible time and material damage to Mir LLC was minimal.

Taking into account the fact that the counterparties have long-standing partnerships, Mir LLC may well be satisfied with the counterparty’s response to the claim, accept the new product and refuse to collect penalties.

Refusal of the claim in this part must be formalized in an appropriate letter.

A different situation arises if the claim is unfounded. In this case, there is no question of any waiver of the claim. The counterparty considers the arguments of the claim and gives a reasoned response refuting its arguments. The second counterparty, having become convinced that its claim is unfounded, can:

• remain silent (tacit consent);
• send a letter of apology (rules of good manners);
• just call and agree with the position of the counterparty.

That is, if the claim is not initially justified and an appropriate response is received, a refusal should not be issued, since this is simply not necessary.

There is a lot of advice on the Internet that refusal in this case is simply necessary. To substantiate this opinion, the argument is given that refusal will protect the counterparty from a repeated claim on the same grounds. By and large, this is legal illiteracy, but at least it does not cause harm. Indeed, formalizing a waiver of a claim will not be a violation of the law, since the parties are free to write whatever they want, as long as it does not clearly contradict the Civil Code of the Russian Federation.

But the fact is that no refusal will prevent the counterparty from submitting a claim again due to newly discovered circumstances. Moreover, no one can prevent another counterparty from again answering that the claim is not justified.

In fact, the exchange of claims and refusals can drag on for a very long time, without obliging the parties to anything.

We recommend adhering to civilized and competent methods of doing business, namely, not filling out unnecessary paperwork and adhering to the letter of the law.

If an unfounded claim is submitted, a waiver of the claim may be necessary when the counterparty has not yet considered its arguments. Although there is an option here too - you can simply wait for an answer. A refusal will not allow, figuratively speaking, the counterparty to “rub the nose” of the author of the claim about his legal illiteracy.

Specific features of this document

Agreement type documentation is drawn up only if the contractual relationship between the parties has been fully settled. This may be upon official termination of the contract. When drawing up such a document, it is necessary to focus on the norms of labor and civil law. Signing the paper is purely voluntary.

The legislation states that a bilateral document stating the absence of requirements and the fact of acceptance of goods or work performed are completely different documents. The last paper may contain a phrase confirming the absence of objections from one person to another. However, even with this phrase, the consumer can apply to the court if suppliers delivered the goods later than the specified period. According to judicial practice, the judge makes a decision in favor of the plaintiff.

and the details of the employee’s application are indicated. After drawing up the dismissal order, the employee puts his signature on the document indicating that he has read the text. If there are reasons why the employee cannot be familiar with the contents of the order or he refuses to sign, the HR employee makes an appropriate entry. The Labor Code establishes a rule according to which the employee is obliged to notify the employer no later than 2 weeks in advance of his desire to terminate the employment contract.

Who prepares the response and in what time frame?

After receiving a client's request, set a deadline for a response. It installs:

• the nature of the complaint is a demand for termination of the contract (clause 2 of Article 452 of the Civil Code);
• an agreement whose provisions have been violated;
• legislation.

The legislation establishes deadlines for responding to some pre-trial appeals. For example, a response to a claim for a refund should be given within 10 days. The table shows the duration and regulations for certain types of customer requirements.

IMPORTANT!

They respond within a reasonable time. If it is not established by the applicant, the agreement and the law, the courts accept it within an interval of 2 - 3 weeks (ruling of the Khabarovsk Regional Court dated July 14, 2017 in case No. 33-5747/2017).

Depending on the organizational structure, different employees prepare the answer:

• secretaries on behalf of responsible persons;
• lawyers;
• heads of departments in whose area of ​​responsibility the object of the complaint is located.

Claim as evidence in a civil case

When the obligation to file a claim is expressly provided for by law, filing a statement of claim without providing evidence of filing a claim will result in the return of the claim. And then the plaintiff will be forced to first file a claim and only then go to court again.

Often the claim procedure for resolving a dispute is provided for by the contract itself. Although any correspondence that contains demands and makes it possible to establish on the basis of what (agreement, action, etc.) such a letter was sent can be considered as a claim, we recommend that in such cases, draw up a pre-trial claim.

Rules for writing a response to a complaint

The main content of the response to the claim is strictly individual in each case. However, there are some requirements that must be followed in any such letter. Firstly, the form itself - it is better to write the answer on the company’s letterhead, this will once again prove the seriousness of the issue and respect for the partner. But if the company does not have a letterhead, the answer can be issued on a regular sheet of standard A4 format. In both cases, it is important to indicate to whom exactly the letter is being sent, as well as its author.

The letter must be dated and there is no need to hesitate here, because... The deadline for responding to a claim is established by law: from 10 to 30 days from the date of receipt of the letter of claim (depending on the specific situation).

The answer must be signed , preferably by the head of the enterprise - this will show the interested party that the director is aware of the problem and also has a desire to resolve it, but if the organization is large with many structural divisions, then the head of the department whose competence includes the solution can verify the answer these tasks.

It is not necessary to affix a seal, since starting from 2021, enterprises and organizations have the full right to exclude the use of seals and stamps from their activities. But it to register the response to the claim in the internal log of outgoing documentation , since it still relates to the official document flow between the two parties.