Last Updated May 2, 2023
What is a Cease and Desist Letter?
A Cease and Desist Letter is a formal letter you send to an individual or organisation to demand that they stop engaging in a specific activity that infringes on your legal rights. It warns the recipient you’ll take legal action if they don’t comply.
Cease and Desist Letters are often used in cases when intellectual property is misused, such as trade mark and copyright infringement, but can also be used in cases of harassment, defamation, or other forms of unlawful conduct.
Sending Cease and Desist Letters is most useful when immediate legal action is not necessary or desirable. Instead, it’s a cost-effective and efficient way to assert your legal rights and seek a resolution to the dispute without resorting to litigation.
Our template is customised for:
- England
- Wales
- Scotland
- Northern Ireland
What is the purpose of a Cease and Desist Letter?
The main purpose of a Cease and Desist Letter is to inform the recipient that they’re infringing on your rights and demand that they stop. Whether the recipient knowingly or unknowingly infringes on your rights, the best place to start is often by informing them with a letter.
Besides allowing you to address the infringement formally, a Cease and Desist Letter creates a written record of you informing the recipient. This could be very helpful if an individual or organisation won’t stop their behaviour and you have to take legal action against them.
Of course, taking legal action is the last resort. Instead, a Cease and Desist Letter gives the recipient time to rectify the situation and stop the behaviour. Ideally, a Cease and Desist Letter can help you quickly resolve an issue before it escalates into costly and time-consuming litigation.
Grounds for using a Cease and Desist Letter
Here are some situations in which it may be appropriate to use a Cease and Desist Letter:
- Debt collection: If a debt collector or collection agency is inappropriately harassing you, demand that they cease communications with you.
- Copyright infringement: If an unauthorised party infringes on your copyrighted material, assert your legal rights and demand they stop using and distributing your work.
- Trade mark infringement: If an unauthorised party infringes on your trade marked material, demand they discontinue using and distributing your work.
- Harassment: Demand that someone stop harassing you. Harassment can include actions like stalking, cyberbullying, or unwanted contact.
- Defamation: If someone is making false statements about you or your business that are harming your reputation, demand they stop and retract any previous false statements.
- Property, boundary, and neighbourhood disputes: If a neighbour is causing a problem, demand that they stop the behaviour.
- Breach of contract: If you have a contract with someone (e.g., an NDA or Confidentiality Agreement) and they’re not fulfilling their obligations, demand that they comply with the contract terms.
When using our Cease and Desist Letter template, select a general letter type if your situation doesn’t involve debt collection, copyright infringement, or trademark infringement. The general letter template allows you to describe the recipient’s unacceptable behaviour in a full paragraph.
How to write a Cease and Desist Letter
Using our template, we’ll prompt you to provide the following details to create your Cease and Desist Letter:
- Your information, including your name and address
- Recipient’s information, including their name and address
- Infringement information that explains what actions you want to stop
- Date of letter
For a Cease and Desist Letter to be effective, it should be as specific as possible and outline the exact actions the recipient must stop taking.
Our Cease and Desist Letter template lets you create four types of letters: general, debt collection, and copyright or trade mark infringement.
Use the general letter to demand that an individual or organisation stop any action or behaviour, including defamation, harassment, and other disputes.
How to send a Cease and Desist Letter
There are a few ways to deliver a Cease and Desist Letter. If you send it by mail, ensure the recipient has to sign for it, showing evidence that they received the letter. This method is valuable because recipients will sometimes plead ignorance of the dispute and claim they didn't receive the letter.
Other ways of delivering a Cease and Desist Letter include:
- Delivering the letter in person
- Hiring a process server to deliver the letter on your behalf
- Sending the letter through email
Some people send Cease and Desist Letters using multiple methods (e.g., in person and via email).
Once you’ve sent your Cease and Desist Letter, it’s always a good idea to keep a copy for yourself and record the time, date, and place of delivery. In addition, you may send a copy of the letter to your solicitor, if you have one.
Is a Cease and Desist Letter enforceable?
A Cease and Desist Letter is not legally enforceable in and of itself. It merely informs and demands the recipient to stop an undesired action.
However, you can use it as evidence in a legal proceeding to show that the recipient was aware of the infringement and that you gave them the opportunity to stop the behaviour.
Does a Cease and Desist letter need to be notarized?
No, a Cease and Desist Letter doesn’t need to be notarized in the United Kingdom.
What happens if a Cease and Desist Letter is ignored?
If the recipient ignores your letter, you’ll have to decide if you want to escalate your actions against them. However, you should give the recipient reasonable time to comply with your request.
What constitutes a reasonable timeframe depends on:
- The delivery method: How you deliver the letter can affect how quickly the recipient can rectify the situation. Delivery by email is immediate, but a standard postal service will take longer.
- The infringing activity or behaviour: It might take time for the recipient to remedy the situation, depending on the activity or behaviour. For example, if they're running an ad that wrongfully contains your company logo, they may need time to remove it.
Cease and Desist: Order versus letter
A Cease and Desist Order is an order issued by a court or government agency. It directs the recipient to immediately stop a specific illegal or harmful activity or behaviour.
Unlike a letter, a Cease and Desist Order is an enforceable order by a judge or administrative agency that requires certain practices to stop and may outline fines, penalties, and even imprisonment for noncompliance. Usually, courts will only issue a Cease and Desist Order after you’ve filed a legal complaint and gone through the proper legal channels.
On the other hand, courts and government agencies are not involved with Cease and Desist Letters. Instead, individuals and organisations use them as a first step in resolving issues.
