New Role, No contract signed

[pmeswani]

I've just received a contract which states that the 'service provider is obliged to work the full term of the contract period'

Is this frequently used, and should I challenge it to be 28 days or something?

TIA

Why 28 days? If you are able to "Negotiate" the termination date, it should be 7 days at best. However, it isn't unusual.

[tim123]

Spot on.

UK contract law is quite clear on this with the 3 basic requirements:-

Offer - You obviously received this
Acceptance - You've been working there so that's a given
Consideration - You've been paid (or I hope so)

Consideration does not have to be paid for the contract to exist, it only has to be offered.

It doesn't have to be money (indeed the contractors "consideration" within the contract is not money),

and it doesn't have to be "sufficient" (I.e it doesn't have to be what a reasonable person would expect it to be).

tim

[tim123]

In other words they can hold you to the contract notice period by getting you to pay the fees they can't collect because you broke the contract and caused them pecuniary loss.

No, these aren't two different ways of saying the same thing.

They are completely different, that is the point.

tim

[tim123]

I've just received a contract which states that the 'service provider is obliged to work the full term of the contract period'

Is this frequently used, and should I challenge it to be 28 days or something?

TIA

It's as frequently used as they think they can get away with it.

Whether you should challenge it depends upon how much it might cost if you want to break such a clause.

tim