Am I bound to a notice period if I'm still in my first month.....

[TheFaQQer]

So, what if it's not a case of the contractor having received but not yet signed the contract. I mean, what if there were no exact terms presented when he started on site?

I mean, I agree, it's silly to start working without a signed contract in place, but surely if the agency has simply delayed sending you their terms (for example by wanting to send an agent to meet you on-site, as seems to be the case here), you can't be assumed to have agreed to them, or can you?

Just wondering.

There are a few cases which are relevant to this: Brogden v Metropolitan Railway Company, Butler Machine Tools v Excell-o, and possibly even Carlill v Carbolic Smokeball Company

Have a read up on acceptance in English law - Wikipedia is a good place to start, although as a quick book on the subject, the Nutshells guide to contract law got me through my degree

[Wanderer]

1) I have handed in my notice within the first month, due largely to being sold on a job that was not what I expected

Yeah, sure but what's the real reason you are leaving? I mean, why leave a job without giving any notice after 3 weeks? Has another job come up or are you leaving so you can do nothing and earn nothing? That's not such a good thing to do at the moment.

2) I actually started on the client site before I had actually signed the contract stipulating one months notice be given

Had you seen the contract before you started? If so, then by starting the work you have accepted the contract offered to you. A signature is not required for a contract to be binding.

I mean, I agree, it's silly to start working without a signed contract in place, but surely if the agency has simply delayed sending you their terms (for example by wanting to send an agent to meet you on-site, as seems to be the case here), you can't be assumed to have agreed to them, or can you? Just wondering.

It depends on how they did it. If they sent the contract before work started and said they would meet the contractor on site to sign it and the contractor started work on delivering the contract then the contract has been agreed even though it's unsigned. Not to say that it couldn't be re-negotiated but the agency is under no obligation to make any changes.

If the agency presented the contract after the work was started then the agency is in a weaker position especially if no notice period or contract terms were explicitly agreed up front. In this case the two parties would have to consider what would be a reasonable notice period and this is wide open to argument.

Walking out on a contract is going to tempt the client/agency to withhold some or all of the payment due as "compensation". This will normally amounting to the exact amount they owe the contractor without consideration of the actual contractual losses incurred by either party.

Probably the best thing to do is for the contractor to sit down with the client and show them what the description of the job was and have a discussion about what they are actually being asked to do. If the client wants to renegotiate the job description after the contractor has started then it's up to the contractor to accept this if they choose to or negotiate a mutually agreeable exit plan.

[d000hg]

thanks for the response.......am I able to take a holiday then if I work 2-3 weeks notice and have a holiday for the remainder?

If they are demanding you work your notice, why would you taking a holiday make any sense?

[SueEllen]

If they are demanding you work your notice, why would you taking a holiday make any sense?

It means the contractor would not have to work some or all of the days of the notice period.

Obviously this won't work as holidays are agreed with the client and you can p*ss them off but the agency can refuse not to pay you.