How to start a letter can be tricky and in these email days where 99% of emails start “Hi, persons name”, it can be difficult if you have to write a “proper letter”

Your first decision is – will you start with Dear Sir/Madam or Dear Somebody or other?

I can’t help you on that – because I don’t know who you are writing your letter to..

However, if you get that right – then you have one more hurdle to clear.

The best way to start a letter is… to just start…

Quite a lot of writers will start with some “clearing the throat”, something like

“As you will no doubt be aware, the purpose of this letter is to ascertain a number of issues relevant to this case”

Could be reduced to

“we need to find out some answers to these problems”

If you have difficulty in writing or get “writers block” – imagine the person is sat next to you and you are talking to them. You wouldn’t say “As you will no doubt be aware, the purpose of this letter is to ascertain a number of issues relevant to this case”

so don’t write it…

One, final problem you might have is do you end your letter with

Yours Faithfully or Yours Sincerely ?

Well, here is a little tip that works for us…

If you start DEAR SIR/Madam – It is FORMAL so you use FAITHFULLY

If you start DEAR SOMEBODY OR OTHER – use SINCERELY

Hopefully, this is helpful -

Just don’t start a letter to your solicitor with “Hi, solicitor”…

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