Agency Politics....

[Dougie800]

Received the contract early this morning and looks like I'm stuck with this assignment for the full 6 months. Conditions state that the consultant company cannot give notice - full duration of Assignment has to be completed. Only under exceptional circumstances and subject to the agencys agreement the
Contractor may terminate the Assignment on 2 months written notice.

Is this fair terms? The assignment lasts 21 weeks now as its taken so long to get things in place.

[quackhandle]

Received the contract early this morning and looks like I'm stuck with this assignment for the full 6 months. Conditions state that the consultant company cannot give notice - full duration of Assignment has to be completed. Only under exceptional circumstances and subject to the agencys agreement the
Contractor may terminate the Assignment on 2 months written notice.

Is this fair terms? The assignment lasts 21 weeks now as its taken so long to get things in place.

You need to get your contract checked properly. QDOS, Bauer & Cotteril do this. Any others?

qh

[MrMarkyMark]

Please advise what to do in this situation.

Keep applying for other London based roles, hopefully you have been doing this already...

[MrMarkyMark]

Is this fair terms? The assignment lasts 21 weeks now as its taken so long to get things in place.

Seeing as you paid your deposit for 6 months, shouldn't you be chuffed to bits?

[VillageContractor]

Your notice period is pointless - if they want to get rid of you then they don't have to give you any work.

So basically you can't give notice but they can - sounds perfect

[gables]

Seeing as you paid your deposit for 6 months, shouldn't you be chuffed to bits?

That's what I was thinking boom ;-)

[Dougie800]

Your notice period is pointless - if they want to get rid of you then they don't have to give you any work.

So basically you can't give notice but they can - sounds perfect

Is that IR35 compliant?

[Dougie800]

Notice period to be given by the agency is: 1 week’s written notice in the first 4 weeks and 4 weeks notice thereafter

[VillageContractor]

Notice period to be given by the agency is: 1 week’s written notice in the first 4 weeks and 4 weeks notice thereafter

You invoice for work done - if there is no work for you then you can't invoice. A 6 month contract does not guarantee 6 months work and a 4 week notice doesn't guarantee 4 weeks work

[psychocandy]

Right so I applied for a role roughly 2 months ago now and only within the last 2 weeks have secured the role (I think). Apparently the rate I applied for was reduced due to budget restraints and I was informed of this before interview - really don't trust the agency so not sure if they bulltulipting me. I was fine with this anyway and went to interview, upon being informed that I was successful at interview I decided to negotiate. I managed to get slightly higher than the new reduced rate but still not the original rate.

I would be commuting from Yorkshire and staying Mon to Fri in London so I have had to secure accommodation which has been very difficult.

The issue is I have realised that I still do not have a formal contract and my start date is fast approaching. They had sent me an offer email initially and I wondered if this is a legally binding agreement even though I do not have the formal written contract yet? The email is titled OFFER EMAIL and only states my day rate along with congratulating me on my new role and asking me to confirm by return of the email on behalf of my limited company that I accept the proposed contract terms prior to entering into a formal written contract which will be supplied shortly.

I am just hoping that the offer is not withdrawn as I have no idea what is taking so long for the written contract to be sent to me. I have already secured accommodation in London and put down a deposit for 6 months based on this `offer email` and the agency reassuring me that the written contract will be sent shortly.

Do I have any rights if the offer is pulled or even delayed further? I was supposed to start last Monday and my agency reassured me that we were on track to start then but it has been delayed by a week so I have basically paid one weeks rent in London for no reason.

Please advise what to do in this situation.

Thanks in advance.

OP. Agents like to do this IMHO. Send you an email and expect you to confirm based on this. How can you accept terms you've never seen?

Of course, if they don't send you the actual contract before you start then its a done deal once you're on site. They'd rather do this than send you a contract, you get it reviewed, then waste they're time arguing about clauses.

Fair enough, tell them you accept subject to contract but tell them nothing happens until you get the contract and get it reviewed. They'll try all sorts like, client is going to pull out because they won't delay, no-one has ever asked for contract before, our contracts are standard so we wont change them anyway, our contracts are the best IR35 friendly ones in the business. All bulltulip.

As for booking accommodation and committing to 6 months, are you insane?
Even if all this contact stuff is resolved, what happens if you're there a month and client decides to can you? It happens. You need to think about things like that.

I never used to buy a long train season ticket just in case. Until I found out it was only £10 to cancel it anyway!

Even if I'd been at a client for ages I still would be concerned about committing to something like 6 months rent. Unless there was a get out. Or taking the risk of having to pay the whole term saved me a lot of money (i.e. cheaper than hotels)? Still a risk....

BTW - the thing about the rate cut before interview. Hmmm possibly they saw you coming too and the client never cut the rate and its going in the agents back pocket. But at least you clawed some back.