demand_letter_drafting v1.0.0

name: demand_letter_drafting description: "Drafting a demand letter that gets taken seriously: stating facts without admissions, setting a clear ask and deadline, choosing tone by relationship, settlement language basics, and the review and send gates before it goes out. Use when someone asks to write, draft, review, or send a demand letter, a final notice before suing, a pre-suit notice, or a payment or performance demand."

Demand Letter Drafting

Purpose

Turn a dispute with documents behind it into a letter a recipient can act on: facts they can check, one clear ask, a real deadline, and one consequence the sender will actually follow through on. A good demand letter settles a share of disputes on its own and, when it does not, becomes a clean record that the sender tried to resolve the matter first.

Workflow

1. Gate the job before drafting

• Confirm who the sender is, who has authority to send, and whether the sender wants a draft only or a letter ready to send. Default is draft only. A human with authority approves sending.
• Confirm the claim type in plain words: unpaid money, broken contract term, property damage, consumer claim, personal injury, intellectual property, wage claim, or a mix. The claim type drives the notice check in step 2 and the tone in step 4.
• Collect the source documents first: agreement, invoices, payment records, photos, reports, prior emails or letters. Draft from documents, never from a summary of documents. If a load bearing fact has no document or a named witness behind it, mark it unverified in the working notes and keep it out of the letter or soften it to what can be supported.
• Record the limitations date if one is known. A demand letter does not stop or extend a statute of limitations. If filing must happen soon, flag that conflict at once instead of drafting a long notice period into a closing window.

2. Check for a required notice before choosing a deadline

• Ask three questions. Does a statute require notice before suit for this claim. Does the contract require notice or a cure period. Does a court rule or an agency process require a demand first.
• Look up the current source for the specific claim and place. Record four fields: period in calendar days, required content, required delivery method and address, and the result if notice is skipped or defective.
• Worked examples are in references/statutory-notices.md: Texas consumer claims under Business and Commerce Code Section 17.505 need 60 days with stated damages categories, California damages claims under Civil Code Section 1782 need 30 days by certified or registered mail with the specific Section 1770 violations named, and federal debt collection letters carry the validation notice rules in 15 U.S.C. Section 1692g. These are patterns to check against, not a substitute for the statute that governs the actual claim.
• If both a statute and a contract set periods, the letter must satisfy both. Use the longer period and include the content each source requires.

3. Build the fact file

• Write a chronology with one line per event: date, what happened, document that proves it. Include the sender's own performance, every payment, every prior ask and its date, and every promise the recipient made and missed.
• Build the amount from lines, not from a feeling. One line per category of loss, each traced to a document, with a total that a checker can recompute. Use bin/demand_letter.py deadline for deadline math once the period is settled.
• List what is not known: missing records, disputed facts, amounts that are estimates. An estimate goes in the letter only when it is labelled an estimate with its basis stated.

4. Choose the tone level and write the reason down

• Pick one level from references/tone-calibration.md and keep the whole letter at it: Level 1 firm and courteous for a first written demand or a relationship worth keeping, Level 2 formal and documented for an ignored ask, a large amount, an insurer or claims department reader, or a statutory notice, Level 3 final notice only when filing is genuinely prepared.
• Note the reason for the level in the working notes: relationship, prior asks, amount, and who will actually read the letter. A letter to an accounts payable clerk, an adjuster, and a former contractor should not read the same.

5. Draft to the standard anatomy

• Follow references/letter-anatomy.md in order: identification and reference line, one paragraph summary, facts in chronological order, sender performance, recipient failure tied to the term or duty broken, itemised harm with a total, the demand, a real calendar deadline with what counts as meeting it, the consequence stated once, reply instructions, signature and enclosures list.
• State facts without admissions. Write what happened and what documents show. Avoid conceding fault, liability, or a disputed fact for the sender, and avoid stating a legal conclusion about the recipient as a settled fact when the letter has not shown its elements. Name the claim, show the facts, let the recipient draw the conclusion.
• Make the demand singular and complete: exact amount or exact action, payee or performer, method, and destination. Two worked letters at different firmness levels are in references/worked-letters.md.
• Keep the letter short enough to be read in one sitting. Put proof in enclosures, not in long quotations inside the letter. A letter that reads like a court brief hands the recipient the sender's whole strategy and usually gets a defensive reply instead of payment.

6. Handle settlement language with care

• Federal Rule of Evidence 408 bars using an offer to compromise a disputed claim, and statements made during compromise negotiations about that claim, to prove or disprove the validity or amount of the claim or to impeach by contradiction. It does not make a letter secret, it does not protect pre-existing documents handed over during negotiation, and a court may admit the material for another purpose such as proving bias or negating a claim of undue delay.
• Practical rules that follow. Do not promise a recipient that nothing in the letter can ever be used in court. Do not put a fact in a settlement letter that the sender cannot afford to have read back, on the assumption the label protects it. Do not label a letter "without prejudice" or "confidential" and treat the label as a shield by itself: protection depends on the governing law, a real dispute, and, for confidentiality, agreement by both sides.
• Keep factual sections and offer sections distinct in structure. A clean fact chronology followed by a clear offer lets the sender argue later about which part was compromise talk, instead of having facts and concessions mixed in every paragraph.
• If the sender accepts less than the full amount in settlement, say what the payment resolves and that a signed release or settlement agreement will follow. The letter alone is a demand, not a release.

7. Run the pre-send checklist and the checker

• Run python3 bin/demand_letter.py check --file draft.txt and fix every missing element and risk flag it reports, or record why a flag does not apply. Run it again after edits.
• Then check by hand, line by line:
• Every name, address, date, and amount matches a source document character for character. The total appears as the same figure everywhere it is used.
• The deadline is a real date, counted under the rule from step 2, falls on a day the stated payment or performance method can actually complete, and matches the period promised in any earlier letter.
• Every consequence named is one the sender can take, is allowed to take, and will take. Remove threats of criminal charges, regulatory complaints, publicity, or harm to reputation that are not directly related to the claim and well founded. Unrelated threats tied to payment can be treated as extortion under local criminal law and as professional misconduct for a lawyer sender under ABA Model Rules 4.4 and 8.4.
• No fee, penalty, interest, or multiplied damage figure appears unless the agreement or the governing law supports it for this claim.
• No statement guarantees a court outcome, invents a filing that is not prepared, or claims a lawyer reviewed or sent the letter when one did not.
• If the letter collects a consumer debt and the sender is a debt collector or a lawyer who collects such debts regularly, the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act disclosures and limits have been checked, including the validation notice and the bar on false threats of legal action.
• The recipient address is the notice address from the contract or statute, not just the address the sender happens to have.
• Get a second reader for any letter over a threshold the sender sets, any Level 3 letter, and any letter under a statutory notice. The second reader checks figures and tone, not just spelling.

8. Send, prove, and diary

• Send by the method the governing source requires. Where no method is required and the amount matters, use a method with delivery proof, such as certified mail with return receipt requested, and keep the receipt with the letter file.
• File one packet: signed letter, every enclosure, delivery proof, the fact chronology, and the amount calculation. If the packet cannot be rebuilt later, the record work is not done.
• Diary three dates at send time: the deadline date, a follow up date a few days after it, and the limitations or filing date from step 1. A demand with no diary entry is a letter that will be forgotten on the day it matters.
• Log the outcome when it lands: paid in full, paid in part with the balance plan, written counter proposal, refusal, or silence. Silence at the deadline triggers the consequence review with the sender, not an automatic second final notice. Repeated final notices with no action destroy the credibility of the next one.

Output Contract

Deliver, in this order:

• A one paragraph brief for the sender: claim, amount and how it was built, tone level and why, notice rule applied with its period and delivery method, deadline date, and the consequence that will follow.
• The letter itself, complete and ready for signature, following the anatomy in references/letter-anatomy.md, with every figure traced to a source document and no placeholder left in it.
• The checker output and the hand checklist result, with any flag that was left in place and the reason.
• The send packet list and the three diary dates from step 8. When the job is a review of an existing draft instead of a new letter, deliver the brief, a marked list of changes grouped as factual fixes, amount fixes, tone fixes, and risk removals, then the clean revised letter.

Operating Rules

• This skill is general information and drafting craft, not legal advice. For a statutory notice, a large amount, a threat with legal consequences, or any letter a lawyer will sign, recommend review by a licensed attorney in the relevant place before sending. Say so in the brief, plainly and once.
• Never invent numbers, dates, quotes, statutes, or events. Every figure comes from a document, a calculation shown in the working notes, or a tool output. Unverifiable means cut it or label it as an estimate or an allegation with its basis.
• Never threaten what the law does not permit or what the sender will not do. No threats tied to exposure, reputation, immigration status, or unrelated criminal or regulatory action in exchange for payment.
• Drafts only by default. Sending, filing, and accepting a settlement are the sender's decisions. The agent drafts, checks, and prepares the packet.
• Keep the other side's personal data and the sender's documents inside the job file. Do not paste a full draft with real names and amounts into public or shared channels.
• One letter, one level, one amount, one deadline. If the sender changes any of them after review, rerun the checker and the hand checklist before the letter goes out.