Contract Termination

[neel9821]

Hi there,

I am currently contracting in Belgium at Client site and contracted to a IT Consulting firm. This month the client has changed the office location and the new location is 50 miles away from an existing location.
My contract has the old client site address as my work location. However this month my IT consulting firm has sent me modification (with new office address) and extension to the contract. The IT consulting company is offering working from home option for a week and one week at the client location but I am reluctant to accept as the new office location is going to put a lot of pressure on my cost.
My contract mentions about working hours but doesn’t mention the change of location.
And I am not travelling to the client location and working from home for last two weeks. The IT consulting firm is kind of forcing me to accept the new contract. I have already served them a months notice but do I have rights to cancel the contract with immediate effect?

Any advise would be highly appreciated

[BrilloPad]

How did you serve notice?

Have you discussed working from home more frequently? What about more money due to the change in location?

[BolshieBastard]

Hi there,

I am currently contracting in Belgium at Client site and contracted to a IT Consulting firm. This month the client has changed the office location and the new location is 50 miles away from an existing location.
My contract has the old client site address as my work location. However this month my IT consulting firm has sent me modification (with new office address) and extension to the contract. The IT consulting company is offering working from home option for a week and one week at the client location but I am reluctant to accept as the new office location is going to put a lot of pressure on my cost.
My contract mentions about working hours but doesn’t mention the change of location.
And I am not travelling to the client location and working from home for last two weeks. The IT consulting firm is kind of forcing me to accept the new contract. I have already served them a months notice but do I have rights to cancel the contract with immediate effect?

Any advise would be highly appreciated

Is the client offerring WFH every other week for the remaining duration? I dont see anything wrong in that and imo, 50 miles isnt that much to travel (its my usual commute to closest clients).

TBH, I think it pretty foolish to can a contract over this. I think you should work with the client to the end of the contract and look for something else nearer the end date.

[northernladuk]

Is the client offerring WFH every other week for the remaining duration? I dont see anything wrong in that and imo, 50 miles isnt that much to travel (its my usual commute to closest clients).

TBH, I think it pretty foolish to can a contract over this. I think you should work with the client to the end of the contract and look for something else nearer the end date.

+1 You will lose more in a week on the bench than the extra costs for the duration of your entire contract.

I would say you have no rights to cancel contract with immediate effect, they have offered a perfectly reasonable arrangement. You could of course just not turn up and get yourself canned. Same thing to you I guess.

[BlasterBates]

Agree with the above, an extra hour extra travelling and costs of about EUR 100 a week doesn't sound so bad. I would look for something after the contract has ended.

[ASB]

I would say you have no rights to cancel contract with immediate effect, they have offered a perfectly reasonable arrangement

A lot of contracts contain a clause along the lines of "or such other reasonable location as determined by the client".

Assuming the contract doesn't have this then this is a material breach by the client. Whether it would successfully argued is a different matter of course.

[neel9821]

Thank you all.

They are trying to link working for home option to the extension of the contract and kind of forcing me to accept this extension. WFH will only be provided for 4 weeks and after that I will have to travel to the new work location every week. They also want me to sign the new contract which has got the new office location. I am not averse to travelling but I have some other plans for the Winter and do not wish to work during that period.

I have given them 30 days notice by email but I thought any changes to the original signed contract will make it void (In my case, change of work location)

[neel9821]

How did you serve notice?

Have you discussed working from home more frequently? What about more money due to the change in location?

WFH was agreed couple of weeks ago but they do not want to pay any expenses. But now its subject to me accepting a revised contract

[BrilloPad]

WFH was agreed couple of weeks ago but they do not want to pay any expenses. But now its subject to me accepting a revised contract

Well for me it would depend what else was on the go. If nothing, then I would accept the new contract, checking the notice period. Then start looking.

Good luck!

[northernladuk]

They can't force you to do anything. Grow some.