According to the Civil Code of the Russian Federation, legally significant messages can take the form of notifications, of various types of messages, including statements. This information should be transmitted to the addressee. As soon as the moment of delivery of a legally significant message occurs, the mechanism of interaction regulated by regulatory acts is launched. This may have properties established by laws, an agreement concluded between the sender and the recipient of the data. The consequences of delivering a communication for one of the two parties or for both are classified as legal civil.
The simplest examples
For example, one firm sends another offer to deal with offsetting. This kind of statement can be classified as a legally relevant message.
Another situation is also possible: the seller sends a notification to the buyer that it is possible to arrive at the warehouse where the acquired items will be released.
In general, any correspondence sent on behalf of the organization to counterparties can be characterized as legally significant messages.
Nobody canceled the official
If some organization wants to send official correspondence to the address of some recipient - legal or natural person, it should take into account that the paper comes into force at the moment when the addressee receives the sent item. This is described in article 165.1. Legally relevant messages cannot be such if they have not been officially delivered to the recipient.
From the laws in force in our country, it follows that the counterparty has no right to evade receipt of such a shipment. If the situation develops in such a way that the recipient refuses to accept the documentation or is located at a completely different address, then the Civil Code mechanism comes into force, which legally significant messages are deemed delivered.
But in practice?
It works as follows: by default, it is customary to think that the addressee received a shipment. But it is important for the sender in a conflict situation to have documentary evidence that the shipment was made. In this case, one side to win the dispute must attempt to prove that the documents were delivered, while the second will insist on the opposite.
And there is always the risk of not receiving legally significant messages even when the two parties to the transaction are not going to conflict. Personnel errors, loss of documentation, or problems with the chosen delivery method can play a role.
Note!
It follows from the current legislation that electronic communication methods can be freely used, no restrictions are imposed on this. In addition to e-mail, you can use text messages on your mobile phone, messages on social networks and fax.
In the 65th paragraph of the EAC Decision number 25, adopted in 2015, the supreme court officially confirmed that the delivery of legally significant messages via e-mail, fax is legal, legal, not contrary to any standards.
At the same time, there are many precedents in legal practice until 2015, when judges established that an email was a means of receiving legally significant messages and this method is more than enough.
We receive and confirm
In order for everything to be framed extremely correctly, it is necessary not only to correctly register and send the document to the recipient. The second side of the situation is to get it legally competent. This implies the preservation of all received messages, regardless of the form in which they arrived.
The sender's task is to preserve the documentation from which it follows that the shipment was made. If you managed to get a signed document repeating that a legally significant message had reached the second party, it is important to keep it. If there are postmarks stating that delivery is not possible, then they are also cherished in the company's archives in case of a conflict. In court, this will serve as evidence in favor of the sender.
How else does it work?
A legally significant message is considered delivered if it was possible to obtain a signature of the counterparty’s official or a note on the incoming documentation.
If no evidence of delivery of the document has been received, a high probability of a conflict situation. Let’s imagine such a case: one company sends a second letter to the address in which it offers to organize netting. The addressee does not want to accept the document, does not put a mark on the incoming, and perhaps the recipient simply forgot to check the official design of the moment of delivery. Consequently, the addressee of the paper has the right to demand from the sender to pay the debt and fines.
Obviously - on an example
Imagine that there are two firms - A and B. They have been doing business together for a long time, but right now there is such a situation that Company A owes a large amount to Organization B for the services that are provided in full. Suppose the amount of debt is 250 thousand.
Company B has an obligation to pay Company A for goods brought in full. The amount under these obligations is 155 thousand. It is possible to partially offset each other's debts. Company A, interested in this approach to settlement, sends an official letter to company B. The documentation was compiled in accounting, handed over to the courier and sent to the headquarters of company B. In the best case, the counterparty receives paper and signs the delivery. The accountant reflects operations on accounts 60 (debit), 62 (credit).
Rainbow: is it always rainbow?
The described scenario is the most positive of the possible ones. In a default situation, legally significant messages, the legal consequences of their delivery are precisely those. By such correspondence, you can agree on a wide variety of business relationships. It is allowed to set specific dates for certain operations.
How else happens?
Consider legally relevant messages in this situation: there are firms A and B cooperating as follows - one organization provides other equipment on a rental basis. Suppose that the lessee is company B, and the lessor is company A. The leaders of company A decided that it was time to change the rental rate - tariffs need to be increased, otherwise the work of the legal entity becomes unprofitable. At the same time, the agreement concluded between the companies allows for a change in rent if one of the parties wishes.
The contract contains information that the notice of the increase in rent should be sent to the tenant by the courier company, and the new rates begin to be effective from the first of the next month after the introduction of the innovation. In this case, the following is considered the month following the one in which the tenant signed for receiving the message.
And what is going on?
In such a situation, the temptation to resort to the following wording is great: failure to receive legally significant messages. Simply put, do not sign for the letter, which says about the increase in rent, pretend that it was not there, and continue to pay according to the previous conditions.
In such a situation, you need to remember that any legally significant messages in civil law are considered delivered by default. That is, the tenant will have to prove in court that he really did not receive any notice. If this does not succeed, you will have to pay the debt, pay the legal costs and pay penalties due to debt.
Laws, rules, orders
Legislation, updated in 2015 with regard to legally significant communications in civil law, was a novelty for legal entities and individuals. Previously, nothing of the kind was mentioned in the laws of our country. For many lawyers and entrepreneurs, the norm was incomprehensible, and its implementation was associated with great difficulties - I had to restructure my vision of official communication with contractors.
Legal practice has shown that the innovation really benefited the business, as there were fewer contentious situations. As you know, a change in the rules of cooperation has previously caused conflicts between the parties to the agreement, but even more problems were associated with proving that the operations are carried out by law. Now one of the stages of changing the conditions - reporting to the second party to the transaction that the first wants to change the agreement - has become more clearly spelled out in the laws.
Is everything all right?
Despite the introduction of legislative standards that allowed to resolve many conflict situations, and now there are many disputes related to legally significant messages. This is due to the fact that current legislation does not contain an exact wording as to which notification method should be considered appropriate, in which situation legal consequences arise.
An interested party is tempted to take advantage of the imperfection of existing laws in order to defend their interest in a conflict situation. In many cases, judicial practice comes to the rescue, if it already had similar precedents (such as with email notifications), sometimes you have to rely on common sense. In any case, the regulations still require refinement, which happens in the process of applying the existing legal norms.
Transactions, contracts and communications
A legally significant communication is important when companies A and B have been cooperating for some time, which was fixed by contracts, but for some reason one of the parties decided to change the conditions. It follows from the Civil Code that a refusal to fulfill partially or fully established by an agreement is permissible. This leads to the termination of the agreement, which occurs legally if a notice of failure to fulfill obligations was sent accordingly.
As soon as one of the parties sends such a legally significant message, we can talk about the termination of the agreement. An alternative is to make changes. It begins to act from the moment the legally significant message reaches the addressee.
And if a mistake?
The most unpleasant moment is when one side sent a message about the change of agreement, and the second did not receive it not because they did not want to, and not because it hid the fact of receipt, but really did not receive information objectively. No less problematic is the situation when the message was delivered to the recipient, but the recipient got to know him much later than I would like.
Such situations involve various disputes on how the agreement is changing, whether it is terminated and from what moment. Others doubt that the agreement is enough for one of the parties to refuse to fully or partially fulfill the agreement. Also controversial is the moment of admissibility of the following agreement: should the date of amending the agreement be considered the day of sending the letter or the day of receipt, the day the recipient reads the information? Of course, the updated laws were drafted in such a way as to minimize contentious issues, but failed to completely circumvent the delicate situations.
Legal significant messages: not only in the enterprise
By the way, with this type of information it is quite possible to encounter in everyday life. What is it about? Imagine that a citizen owns a share in an immovable property and wants to sell it. For the procedure to go according to the law, he will have to inform the other participants about the planned transaction. They, in turn, must express their consent to the sale of property to an outsider. The seller will immediately publish data on at what price, under which conditions the sale is planned.
Other owners of the property, having their own shares, are considered parties to the transaction. First, all of them must refuse to purchase the sold part, only after that it will be possible to cooperate with a third party. Interested parties have a month to express their opinion. If a share in movable property is sold, then a decision will have to be made within 10 days from the date of notification. If no one takes the initiative, the seller contacts the buyer from the outside and exercises the right to deal. The day of the notice is the date when the owners were given the notice. The day the transaction rights arise - as soon as the time period established by law has passed.
Did it come to that?
A deal, an arrangement, a custom can determine the exact moment of entry of new conditions of cooperation. Example above: from the first day of the month following when the legally significant message was delivered.
If there is no such mention, the law considers that the period begins to count from the moment when the addressee received the information. Of particular interest in this aspect is the second paragraph of the first paragraph 165 of the CC article, which states that even a message was sent that was sent to the addressee, but not delivered due to reasons independent of the sender. Also, the sender is not responsible for reading the contents of the message. The sender's task is to send the document on time and have documentary evidence of this fact. This allows you to resolve the conflict situation, if the addressee avoids receiving information, hoping to extend cooperation on favorable terms.
Extreme case
This situation rarely happens, but still takes place: one of the parties to the contract takes steps in advance to ensure that legally important messages do not reach it, for this it provides incorrect information about the address for sending correspondence. Previously, such a "trick" worked, but according to the updated Civil Code in this situation, the responsibility rests with the addressee. If the sender has sent the data and has confirmation of this, in a conflict situation the court will take his side.
We work with citizens
The updated legislation contains new standards regarding the address of residence of a particular citizen. For example, a person has the right to inform all organizations with which he works the address of not only registration, but also temporary residence. These may be lenders and other interested parties. Suppose a person has two apartments, is registered in one, but lives in the other.
To send legally relevant information, they usually provide the address of registration, registration, and not temporary residence, but when sending information, the situation may be such that a person does not see the notice of changes in the terms of cooperation in time. In the future, during the trial, referring to the fact that the information was simply “not seen” will not work, even though such tactics had worked before. If the sender has sent data to one of the addresses provided to him, it is considered that the recipient is notified, and the consequences take place.