A correctly drafted letter of unilateral termination of a service agreement is an important tool in doing business. Moreover, it is important not only because one of the parties turned out to be dishonest. The main advantage of the letter in question is that it does not require any extraordinary reason to compose it. Thus, one of the parties may refuse further cooperation, using unilateral rights.
The main purpose of the document in question is to notify the other party that the agreement is being terminated. But for the document in question to be valid, it must be drawn up based on legal norms and rules, otherwise the document cannot be used. The sample will have to have a clear structure that meets the standards prescribed by law.
What is a letter informing about unilateral termination of a contract for the provision of services?
Any service is provided on the basis of a contract, which spells out all the features and nuances of cooperation. A contract is a document that the parties must sign voluntarily . But cooperation does not always go as planned. The service may not satisfy the customer, or other difficulties may arise in providing assistance. In such cases there is no need to continue working. The simplest and most obvious way out of the situation would be to terminate the service agreement.
Termination of a contract for the provision of various services does not always occur according to the desired scenario. Termination often involves resorting to the letter of the law. In order for the threat to unilaterally terminate the contract to be taken seriously, you can choose one of three ways, which are prescribed in 450 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. If no one has any objections, termination can take place by agreement of the parties. The second option can be used if one of the parties categorically does not want to terminate the agreement. In such a situation, resolution of the conflict is possible only after applying to the court. But you can do without going to court, since there is the option of unilateral termination, but without initiating criminal proceedings. Only in this case should such a right be spelled out in the law itself or be included in the terms of the contract.
If the procedure for terminating the contract occurs unilaterally, it is necessary for the party acting as the initiator to provide the second participant in the procedure with a letter stating that cooperation is terminated.
When one of the parties plans to terminate the contract by mutual consent ahead of schedule, it is necessary to draw up a letter of termination and send it to the other party. Unilateral termination of a contract is not possible in all cases. This is only permissible in situations described in the law. Such reasons include violations of their duties by one of the parties and other factors described in the Civil Code of the Russian Federation.
If the case is not considered to be such that cooperation can be terminated unilaterally, a letter will not be required. The parties may stipulate termination of the contract by mutual consent. In this case, the termination procedure will follow a different scenario. When the unilateral refusal procedure is used, it must be taken into account that as soon as the counterparty receives a letter of termination of the contract, cooperation immediately stops.
To correctly draw up the document, you should use a sample letter of termination of a service agreement:
How to correctly write a response to a received notification?
If you are the party who received the termination notice, you must provide a response to it.
In the response header you need to write down information about who the response is addressed to, then indicate who it was written from.
We suggest you familiarize yourself with: Sample complaint about the investigator’s inaction to the prosecutor’s office
If the question concerns the termination of an employment-related contract, then the notice of its termination is also drawn up in writing.
Notice of termination of the employment contract.
There are also situations when an employee simply refuses to accept this document, then it is necessary to draw up an act in which information should be recorded that the notice was not signed due to the refusal of one of the parties.
The counterparty that receives such a notice must respond to it in writing within a certain period of time:
- the one contained in the body of the letter;
- noted in the contract itself;
- unless deadlines are specifically agreed upon, the time to respond should not exceed one month.
FOR YOUR INFORMATION! If there is no response after the expiration of the deadline, then the party that sent the notification has the right to apply to the court for resolution of the problem that has arisen.
Rules for drawing up a letter of termination of a contract (unilateral procedure)
You will have to write a notice that you are interested in terminating the contract at least twice . For the first time, the document should be sent to the counterparty, informing him that you plan to break off relations with him. The first notification may not be sent, since, according to the law, there is no such need, but it is still better to be safe. The letter can be sent in any convenient way, including email.
It is quite possible that the counterparty will agree to fulfill the conditions of the person who applied and it will be possible to do without legal proceedings. But even if you have to go to court, having a first appeal can be to the benefit of the applicant, since it will provide evidence that everything possible was done to resolve the conflict peacefully.
But for everything to work as it should, you should indicate in the letter the period during which you expect a response. The standard period for writing a sample is a calendar month – 30 days. But there are no restrictions in this matter; the applicant can indicate any other period that will be convenient for him specifically. Regardless of whether this period is more or less than the standard.
There are also many requirements for the content of the text, so when composing a document, you should pay attention to what exactly you write. You can learn how to write a notice of termination of a service contract using the sample example:
Dear Innokenty Fedorovich, good afternoon!
I ordered Norway spruce from you, which was supposed to arrive at the specified address by December 30, 2021. On January 15, 2020, the order still had not arrived, but the New Year holidays had come to an end. I no longer need the spruce I ordered from you, since the holiday has already passed and the order has lost its relevance for me. Since the order has not yet arrived, I would like to cancel the sales contract.
I made an advance payment in the amount of 4 thousand rubles. Please return it to the account indicated below.
Account details where you need to transfer funds:
Recipient bank: JSC Tinkoff Bank
Corr. account: 301018101452501234567
BIC: 077525844
Recipient: Savchenko Ivan Yurievich
Payee's account: 408178107000012345678
I hope that the issue will be agreed upon. I will wait for a response until January 30, 2021.
Sincerely,
Ivan Yurievich
When the document is written, it should be sent to the legal address of the performer (postal is used if there is no legal address). Sending must be done in the format of a registered letter with notification. Also, the document must be sent to the email address of the customer or contractor. Duplicating by email will allow you to protect yourself if a regular letter is lost. In addition, receiving an email is much faster and saves time on resolving the conflict if the other party wants to make concessions, ending the provision of services immediately. If a sample is not available, the notice in question can be attached to the claim as an appendix.
Procedure for terminating a service contract in 2019
To terminate a contract for the provision of paid services, we recommend following the following algorithm:
Step 1: draw up a proposal to terminate the contract by agreement of the parties
The document is drawn up in simple written form, with the obligatory indication of the following points:
- Date and place of compilation;
- Information about the contract being terminated (number and date of conclusion);
- Data of the parties to the contract;
- Reason for termination of the contract;
- Date of termination of the contract;
- Information about the absence of mutual claims between the parties.
Step 2: Send the other party a proposal to terminate the contract
A proposal to terminate the contract can be sent to the other party in any way convenient for you: for example, by registered mail with acknowledgment of receipt.
If the other party refuses to terminate the contract, or if you do not hear from them within 30 days, you will need to apply to the court to terminate the contract.
Step 3: file a statement of claim for termination of the contract
Art. 131 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation states that any statement of claim must indicate:
- Name of the court to which the application is filed;
- Details of the plaintiff (full name/name of organization, place of residence/location of organization, etc.);
- Data of the defendant (full name/name of organization, place of residence/location of organization, etc.);
- The plaintiff’s demands (in this case, the demand to terminate the contract for paid services);
- The circumstances on which the plaintiff bases his claims;
- Information on compliance with the pre-trial procedure for contacting the defendant;
- List of documents attached to the statement of claim.
Step 4: Go to Court
As a general rule, a statement of claim for termination of a contract for the provision of services for a fee is filed with the district court at the place of residence (location) of the defendant.
Step 5: attend the court hearing and receive a decision
If the court satisfies your demands, then after the court decision comes into force, the contract will be considered terminated and your obligations under it terminated.
When is it permissible to unilaterally refuse to perform a contract?
The provision of services must be mutually agreed upon. A unilateral decision comes into force only under special circumstances if they are prescribed by law. Civil legislation describes situations when termination of a contract is possible unilaterally.
For example, if the contract itself states that any party to the transaction can initiate its termination at will (unilaterally). It is also possible to terminate the agreement if the essence of the agreement affects special norms used in civil legislation or when one of the parties provided a service or performed other work in violation of the conditions specified in the agreement. Termination is possible if the circumstances of the transaction have changed (for example, the price has significantly decreased or increased, etc.).
The provision of services may not be necessary unilaterally, either for the customer or for the contractor. It is only important to send the counterparty a correctly composed letter on time. If the situation is not included in the list of those when legal relations can be terminated unilaterally, it is possible to send a petition to terminate the contract. And then the agreement is drawn up on the basis of a new document or ceases to be valid at all.
The law clearly states what types of contracts can be terminated unilaterally. And according to the Civil Code, there are not many of them. The list of exceptions to the impossibility of unilateral severance of relations includes a supply agreement, energy supply (for individuals using energy for domestic purposes), lease (when the term of its conclusion does not have a specific framework), contract, paid provision of services, transport expedition, agency and bank account agreement . In the latter case, termination is possible if the initiator of the break is the bank, and no manipulations have been performed on the client’s account for more than two years.
But even the possibility of unilateral termination of the contract does not mean that termination of the provision of services will be free for the initiator of the termination. The second party may request to exercise the right to compensation for actual expenses, even if the gap is one-sided and the service was not fully provided. Also, in the contract itself, you can specify the conditions for calculating compensation for damages in the event of a unilateral severance of business relations. Although, if the contract does not specify the cost of terminating the contract, it cannot be established after the fact.
What to do if the other party refuses to sign a letter of termination of the contract
If the customer sends a letter to terminate the cooperation agreement, but the other party refuses to sign it, problems may arise. When this happens, it is possible to sever the relationship, but there is a high probability that this will have to be done through the courts, using a unilateral procedure. But a simple statement of claim is not enough in this case. A set of certain documents must be attached to the application in order for it to be accepted in court.
Also, in order for the court to accept documents, it is necessary to have not only notifications, but also strong grounds for legal proceedings. The grounds can be general, that is, such that they apply with equal effectiveness to a lease or purchase and sale agreement. A separate category of grounds for starting a unilateral termination procedure are special reasons.
When the documents have been collected and the application has been written, you need to contact the nearest judicial authority. But the application should be made exclusively during office hours. You should find out more about them. Usually you need to apply at the place of registration of the defendant, but if the termination of the contract concerns real estate, then you have to seek help from the court located at the location of the property.
Termination of the contract is possible at almost any stage of development of relations between the parties. The main thing is to follow the procedure for terminating a contract for the provision of services, and so that at the time of termination the contract has not yet been executed. Although even if the contract is fulfilled, it can still be terminated. For example, in the case of a framework agreement, and if the customer does not plan to cooperate with the counterparty further.
In addition, some types of contracts have special termination conditions. This is easy to see in the example of a lease agreement, according to which the tenant must return the property to the owner only after checking its condition and drawing up a special act. Simply leaving the apartment, even if there is a one-sided breakup, is not enough.
What documents do you need to go to court with?
An application to the court for termination of a contract, the provision of services under which is unsatisfactory, is carried out if a complete list of documents is available. The following documents must be included in the folder:
- a check confirming payment of the state fee (the details used to pay for the provision of court services are presented on the website of the required judicial authority);
- a copy of the agreement on obligations that needs to be terminated;
- notice of termination of the contract (with the help of the notice in question, confirmation of the correctness of the pre-trial procedure is carried out), and if there is no document, its alternative can be a document listing the contents of the registered letter to which the notice was sent;
- papers on the basis of which it is planned to terminate the agreement regarding the provision of services;
- if a representative is involved in the procedure, then you will need a power of attorney, not the name of the representative in question.
It is necessary to make copies of all these papers and statements, taking into account the number of persons participating in the case. The sample will be sent to all participants so that they can familiarize themselves with the materials of the procedure (customer, performer and others). In the event of a positive court decision, contractual obligations are considered terminated from the moment the court decision to terminate the contract enters into legal force.
Sources:
- https://nsovetnik.ru/dogovor/kak_pravilno_rastorgnut_dogovor_okazaniya_uslug/
- https://pravo-sfera.ru/pravo/rastorzhenie-dogovora-ob-okazanii-uslug/
- https://yurist-po-telefonu.ru/pravo/rastorzhenie-dogovora-ob-okazanii-uslug/
- https://kraynev.ru/press-centr/publikacii/rastorzhenie-dogovora-na-okazanie-uslug/
- https://allcontract.ru/dogovory/dogovory-okazaniya-uslug/rastorzhenie-dogovora-okazaniya-uslug.html
- https://zaschita-prav.com/zayavlenie-o-rastorzhenii-dogovora-okazaniya-uslug/
- https://piterlaw.ru/news/kak-zakazchik-mozhet-rastorgnutj-dogovor-vozmezdnogo-okazaniya-uslug-1272
- https://www.centersoveta.ru/yurlikbez/rastorzhenie-dogovora-okazaniya-uslug-v-2018-godu-poshagovaya-instruktsiya/
- https://www.arbitr-praktika.ru/article/234-red-zakazchik-uslug-uvedomil-ispolnitelya-ob-odnostoronnem-rastorjenii-dogovora-s-kakogo-momenta
- https://www.wonder.legal/ru/modele/notice-termination-of-the-service-agreement
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