28 days notice

[gravitas]

Hi, basically my agency has screwed up - my 6 month contract is actually a 3 month contract which will take me till end of November. As I don't want to be out of work over Xmas I've chosen to give notice.

The contract says 28 days notice is required which is fine. The problem is as it doesn't state 'working days' I've assumed that it's 4 weeks notice i.e. 4 x7 whereas they're now telling me it's 28 working days.

Are they right that 28 days notice means 28 working days? Or should they have stipulated that in contract?

Any views/experiences would be appreciated.

Rgds,

[The Late, Great JC]

You're looking rather pale, are you OK? You don't look well at all.

However, make sure you've got a new contract before you go "on sick leave".

[insight14]

No, they are trying it on. 28 days means 28 days. 28 working days means 28 working days.

One bit of advice though: if you are leaving a client early, make sure the client hears it from you before they hear about it from the agent. You get to tell your side of the story and make the agent look like the bad guy.

There's been a couple of guys post here recently who are having trouble getting their last few weeks/months fees from the agent because the client got the hump about them leaving early and refused to pay the agent.

[sb5spa]

Notice

If the contract states 28 days then that is what it is. If the contract states 28 working days then that is what it is.

[ratewhore]

There's been a couple of guys post here recently who are having trouble getting their last few weeks/months fees from the agent because the client got the hump about them leaving early and refused to pay the agent.

If the contract is between the limited and the agency it doesn't matter if they (the agent) get paid or not. Hopefully there will be payment terms in this contract (there are implicit payment terms anyway) so the agency have to cough up.

I just successfully got late payment penalties and interest paid on late invoices so for info see http://www.payontime.co.uk/.

[insight14]

Good to see you had a win there Ratewhore, its always nice to see the little guy upholding his rights.

Yes, in most cases the agent has to pay the contractor for work done regardless of whether the client pays up. However, recovering that money from the agent can be a long slow process as you've probably just found out.

My advice was simply to help Gravitas avoid getting into that situation in the first place. Which I think is sensible.

[ratewhore]

Doesn't really take that long dependent on whether the agency wants to go to court.

Basically, the law takes 30 days as adequate payment terms. After 30 days, you can apply a penalty (£40 <£1000, £70 £1000-£9999) plus interest which is bank base rate + 8% / 365 for each day it is late. The agency will then start to argue but as long as your invoices are correct they havent a leg to stand on and it soon focusses their mind when you ask for the name of the person a court summons needs to be sent to.

It may not add up to much but it certainly gets the scum agents twitching...


...which was fun to watch of course!!!