If you're answering
A demand letter arrived
Somebody has written down their version of what happened and asked you for something. Here is what usually comes next, and how to get your side of it into order.
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Last updated Oct 10, 2026
First, the letter is not a court order
A demand letter is somebody's account of events plus a request. It can be written by a person, a company, or a lawyer on their behalf. On its own it decides nothing and it compels nothing.
Some demand letters are the first step toward a court filing. Others are an opening position, sent to see what comes back. You usually cannot tell which one you are holding from the letter itself, and the tone is no guide — a frightening letter is cheap to write.
What it does do is start something. From here on, what you can show about what happened matters more than what you remember about it.
What usually happens next
In most of these, the shape is the same:
You reply, or you don't. Either way, that becomes part of the story.
They answer, negotiate, go quiet, or escalate. Going quiet is common. So is a second letter.
If it escalates, it usually goes to a small claims court or a similar local court, or to whatever body oversees the thing in dispute.
Whoever ends up deciding it reads two accounts of the same events and works out which one is better supported. Not which is louder.
That last line is the whole reason this page exists. The person who wrote to you has their account already written down. Right now, you don't.
The date on the letter
The letter almost certainly gives you a date to respond by. That date is the one that matters, and it is the first thing to write down.
We are not going to tell you how long you legally have, because that depends on where you are, what the dispute is, and what kind of letter this is. We would get it wrong for somebody.
Two things are worth knowing. A deadline the sender picked is the sender's deadline, not the law's. And a very short one — answer by tomorrow, answer within 24 hours — is usually there to stop you thinking. Asking for more time, in writing, is an ordinary thing to do and it is itself something worth having a record of.
Today: write down your account, before you reply
One thing to do today, and it is not the reply.
Write down what actually happened, while you still remember it clearly. Dates, times, who was there, what was said, what was sent. Your memory of this week is as good as it will ever be, and it gets worse from here.
Also write down, word for word, what they are actually claiming. Take their letter and break it into separate points. Most demand letters bundle four or five claims into one paragraph, and some of them are true, some are half true, and some are wrong. You cannot answer a paragraph. You can answer a point.
That is the work. The reply gets easier once that exists, and harder if you do it the other way round.
What to leave alone for now
- Don't reply angry, and don't reply today. Whatever you send becomes part of the record, and you cannot take it back.
- Don't delete anything, even the messages that make you look bad. Especially those. A gap in the record is worse than an awkward entry in it.
- Don't call them to sort it out without writing down what was said afterwards. A phone call that nobody wrote down did not happen, as far as anybody deciding this is concerned.
- Don't guess at what you owe. Not in writing, not yet.
You have more of a record than you think
This is the part people get wrong about being on this side.
Somebody raising a dispute has been collecting since day one, because they knew there was a problem. You are starting from nothing, because until that letter arrived there was nothing to answer. That sounds like a losing position and it usually isn't one.
The best record you have is the one you kept for another reason:
- A photo roll your phone dated as you took it. Pictures of a finished room in April are a condition record whether you meant them that way or not.
- A roster, a calendar, a timesheet — kept so you knew which week was which, and it happens to say where you were.
- A friendly text from sixteen months ago, which matters precisely because it was written when nothing was at stake.
None of it was a record when it was made. It becomes one because it is dated, and because somebody puts it in order.
That is the first hour of a case you are answering. Not writing anything new — putting what already exists somewhere it can be counted and read in sequence.
What your side looks like when it is in order
BuildMyEvidence is a place to put it. You write down what happened, as it happened or as you remember it, and attach what you already have. Everything gets a date and a number.
For a letter like yours, that gives you:
- Their points, listed separately, each one in their words, with whatever you have that bears on it sitting underneath.
- One chronology, in order, with no argument in it — the page somebody deciding this actually reads.
- Your own statement, in your words, numbered, with a page at the end to sign by hand.
- Your photos, two to a page, with the dates they carry.
You can read every page in full before you pay. The screen copy carries preview marks across it. The file you download is clean, and it is $59 once, for this case. What the $59 covers
It is a record, not a lawyer. It does not tell you whether you will win, and it does not write your position for you. What it does is make sure that when you do answer, you are answering from something.
Read one that is already written
Two of our four worked examples are written from this side — somebody answering something they did not start. You can open them and read every page, free.
Questions people ask
- Do I have to reply at all?
- That is your decision and it depends on your situation. What we can say plainly is that not replying is itself a choice that forms part of the record, and that people who do reply usually find it easier having written their own account first.
- Should I get a lawyer?
- Plenty of people handle a letter like this themselves, and plenty don't. If you do speak to someone, you will get further in the first half hour if you arrive with dates and documents in order instead of a shoebox. That is true either way.
- They are claiming things that are just not true.
- Then the point is to show what is, not to say what isn't. Take their claim, put it on its own, and put the dated thing next to it. That reads better than a denial, and it is what the record is for.
- Can I use this if it has already gone to court?
- Yes. People start a case here at all sorts of points. The record is the same either way.
- Is what I write here private?
- Yes. It is your account, in your account, and nothing leaves it unless you send it. Privacy
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