Advice re Agency, Contract and Legal proceedings

[janedoe73]

Hello,

I would welcome any advice regarding my situation with a recruitment agency. I am an IT contractor who has been contracting for 12 years. For the past 4 years I have been trading as a LTD company. I think I am about to get screwed by this agency I have been contracting through for the past 10 weeks.
Before I started on the contract I was told that it would be local, apart from the 1st week, and the mileage would be 25p per mile. Anyway, it turned out that it was not local, infact covering the width of the country, so I told the agency I would only be prepared to continue if the mileage was 40p. They verbally agreed this, so I carried on with the contract. I kept asking them to send through a new expense contract with the correct mileage rate on and eventually they emailed through a letter head with this new rate on but it was not signed. I have this agreed by email from them in two emails and this letterhead with the contract title and agreement on (but not signed) and a voice message from them on my phone with this agreed. However they are now stating that they know nothing about this, denying all knowledge and refusing to pay my invoices with this mileage on.

There is so much other underhand dealings with this agency and contract that I could be here all day telling you about, this agency has told blatant lies and shown no integrity what so ever and I shall never contract through them again, however what I need to know now is, - will the emails from the agency confirming the mileage at 40p be enough to legally win if I have to take them down the legal claims case to get my money? It amounts to about 1000.00.

Any advice greatly appreciated.

[TeeDeeEye]

I'm possibly getting in a similar scenario as you but only with a contract that started a week ago.
45p is the official govt rate - which should be treated as a minimum to have any chance of covering fuel & other costs.

[craig1]

Getting it in writing isn't all it's cracked up to be. If there's an amendment to rates and it's agreed and documented somewhere, even just as an email, then it is usually enforceable. It's only if it's a disputed verbal agreement that you might come unstuck.

Keep sending the invoices through at the full, new rate and start the ball rolling on debt recovery for unpaid expenses.

Send them a letter, copying the emails (with full headers) and a transcript of the voicemail agreeing the change, and inform them that they owe you £x in unpaid expenses.

There's plenty of advice on this forum about recovering unpaid invoices, have a search, it should give you plenty of guidance on what to do next.

[BolshieBastard]

The 45ppm (for the first 10k miles in a tax year) is only the governments \ hmrc stated amount. A company does not have to pay this to anyone claiming mileage. It can be higher, in which case more tax would be liable or it could be lower.

If you are starting a contract with agreed reimbursement for travel, the contract should clearly state what rate the re imbursement will be. Part way through a contract is fraught with problems as the OP has found.

Its best to go with the flow in a contract and insist on it at renewal if it wasnt in the original contract.