3 Month Notice Period

[pacharan]

I've been put forward for a 12 month contract which has a 3 month notice period on my side. On the client side, the period is 1 month.

The rate isn't very good & to mitigate that I'm trying to tweak some of the contract clauses to make it more IR35 friendly. The client is unbending on the 3 month clause though & I have a gut feeling this is bad for my IR35 status. Are my thoughts correct? TIA.

[northernladuk]

3 months would indeed very bad for IR35 if it had been on both sides. One month for them is acceptable for IR35 but any mention of 3 months isn't particularly good either way. I would also suggest that as you have a 12 monther you have your work cut out to get out of IR35. The 12 month isn't an issue particularly but it appears this combined with the 3 monther makes me wonder if they are going to treat you like disguised employee and tie you down to all the other process's the permies have as well.

Are they talking about the rate being on a pro rata basis and talk about it being a yearly figure as well or are they offering just a day/hourly rate? 12 months with 3 months notice starts to sound like one of these contracts that they put permies on for 2 years before they are obliged to offer them a role. Could just be guessing here but check carefully.