Question about buisness selloffs (as an employee)

timeless

Long story short, lm asking a question on behalf of my mother and sister who work as carers..

it has recently come to our attention that the business she works for has been sold off.. while there was rumours.. we didnt know till today.. in fact w werent even sure it was true.. what we would like to know is should we have been informed before the sell off? although it looks like it will be better under the new management we still feel that before the sell off their contract wasnt honoured will the new employers have to honour old contracts?

furthermore, before the sell off travel wasnt getting paid.. or at least as much as should have been can we backtrack through old timesheets which they should have and get it paid because we have tried to follow this up before.

SarEl

Ir is likely that TUPE applies, but not certain without knowing the method of the acquisition. If it is a TUPE then exiting terms and conditions of staff will be honoured for now - but not necessarily for ever.

If this is a TUPE then the new employer does take on liabilities under the TUPE for staff, so technically yes, you could backtrack through old timesheets, payslips and other docuement5s to prove that you haven't been paid what you were due, demand payment, and then take them to civil court (I am assuming that you are out of time for a tribunal claim) if they refuse to pay up. You may or may not win - there is actuallly no evidence that after the time that has passed you haven't accepted the rate being paid. But this will obviously put you in an excellent position for when the restructure / redundancies / disciplinary processes come along, and I don't expect that you would need to worry about travel expenses any more.

In other words - you didn't dare take on the old employer on over travel expenses, and there is nothing at all to suggest that the new employer is going to take any more kindly to your demands. Rocking the boat is almost certainly not in your best interests right now, and I would adbise treating this as a "clean sheet" - if you want to take up matters of terms and conditions with the new employer, do that as an issue of what happens here and now. If you think that they will be better employers (and you don't yet know that) then it would be better if you start off with a positive relationship by trying to sort out what you say has been gone wrong, rather than slapping them with a bill for something they didn't do.

Uncertain

I agree.

Technically your claim (if you have one of course) can be made any time up to six years (five in Scotland).

If during that time you change jobs it may be worth considering pursuing the matter then so keep all evidence carefully.

Emmzi

It depends what you mean by sell off. If for example it has been sold as a going concern and is a limited company then there are no changes for you at all. Apart from maybe a new boss.

timeless

it was sold as a going concern as far as lm aware.