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Contract Advice/Thoughts

GillyFlower
Posts: 150 Forumite


Regarding a contract, yet to be signed, which is different than one last year and reads -
Probationary Period
New employees are subject to the satisfactory completion of a 12 month probationary period. The company reserves the right to extend this period at its discretion. (It goes on to say that the company reserves the right to terminate your employment at any time during your probationary period.)
Question - If have worked for company for approx 15 months would it be wise to request a written confirmation that probationary period now completed?
Another area of concern that has changed since last contract is regarding the company vehicle that is provided to carry tools/equiment and able to take home.
Vehicles and Driving - a section of this reads -
If damage to a vehicle provided by the Company is incurred as a result of your negligence, or in breach of the Vehicles and Driving policy, you may be liable for the total cost of repairing the vehicle, for paying any insurance excess and /or any increase in premiums following a claim. Payments will be deducted from your pay unless an alternative method of payment is agreed with the company.
Questions -
1. What if the employee feels he was not negligent if an incident occurred? Who has the deciding factor - the employer?
2. What if there was an accident, no witness, both parties felt it was the other persons fault but in a private case would deal with their own damage? Would the employer feel the employee has to foot the bill according to the contract?
3. What if the damage occurred when the employee had left the vehicle to carry out work and came back to find damage e.g. car park, side of road, etc.
4. What if the roads conditons e.g. ice, etc. Work can take you across the country.
This is looking at the worse case scenario. What if, because costs can be huge and it is understandable no employer wants a negligent driver, this ran into thousands could the employee see himself in a situation that he was paying something for an indefinate period and in fact may have been sacked!
Comments would be very much appreciated.
Probationary Period
New employees are subject to the satisfactory completion of a 12 month probationary period. The company reserves the right to extend this period at its discretion. (It goes on to say that the company reserves the right to terminate your employment at any time during your probationary period.)
Question - If have worked for company for approx 15 months would it be wise to request a written confirmation that probationary period now completed?
Another area of concern that has changed since last contract is regarding the company vehicle that is provided to carry tools/equiment and able to take home.
Vehicles and Driving - a section of this reads -
If damage to a vehicle provided by the Company is incurred as a result of your negligence, or in breach of the Vehicles and Driving policy, you may be liable for the total cost of repairing the vehicle, for paying any insurance excess and /or any increase in premiums following a claim. Payments will be deducted from your pay unless an alternative method of payment is agreed with the company.
Questions -
1. What if the employee feels he was not negligent if an incident occurred? Who has the deciding factor - the employer?
2. What if there was an accident, no witness, both parties felt it was the other persons fault but in a private case would deal with their own damage? Would the employer feel the employee has to foot the bill according to the contract?
3. What if the damage occurred when the employee had left the vehicle to carry out work and came back to find damage e.g. car park, side of road, etc.
4. What if the roads conditons e.g. ice, etc. Work can take you across the country.
This is looking at the worse case scenario. What if, because costs can be huge and it is understandable no employer wants a negligent driver, this ran into thousands could the employee see himself in a situation that he was paying something for an indefinate period and in fact may have been sacked!
Comments would be very much appreciated.
0
Comments
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Not a legal eagle but my interpretation would be
A1) Probationary periods and rights to cancel your employment are a little bit mute as they have a statutory right to cancel your employment in the first 2 years. The only reason it really matters is if notice period or bonuses etc are impacted by being in or out of probation. In these cases it would be prudent to confirm that the probation is over.
B1) Presumably an employment tribunal would be the arbitrator if you cannot come to an agreement though in cases other than hit and runs its fairly straight forward because the insurers will deal with negligence/ liability
B2) Knock for Knock agreements dont exist formally any more so if you did do one privately then you'd do so knowing youd be stumping up money to your employers. Normally in these circumstances youd have a 50/50 settlement so you could recover 50% of the charges from your employers from the third party
B3) There is no negligence there unless you parked it on a blind bend etc
B4) These are always harder to judge, generally there is negligence for having driven in conditions like this at the speeds/ manor that caused the crash. There can be cases where there is no negligence such as where the car is stationary but suddenly slides down the camber of the road into a parked car
If they are making you liable for the excess then you should be able to ask what it is. Whilst some large corporations do have massive retentions on their policies these are normally as part of a captured insurer (tax efficiencies) and so the excess will actually be reasonable.0 -
Thank you. I was wondering if it would be a good idea to put in writing concerns as to what the contract may imply as they are a very small company. Maybe they cannot afford any unforseen expenses even if their employees where involved in an 'accident' and they could see a way of sharing the costs.
Yes - it could be worth asking what is the excess, increase in premiums I suppose would only be known if and when an accident occurred.
It just make me feel this could be one of those 'how long is a piece of string' question and you have to wait and see if it did happen. I am concerned it could be seen as accepted as an open ended opportunity to land an employee with a £?,??? bill.
I appreciate the employer wants people to be responsible and 'one strike and you're out' would be justified if negligent with the company van.
I would be really nervous have having this hanging over me as accidents do happen. My brother had his car parked in a side road, visibilty no problem, he came back to find the front of his Mini Cooper caved in so someone had backed into it and gone. He didn't have to explain that to an employer and had to foot the bill. Let us say it was a company van I take it the employer, with a contract such as the one I am discussing, hopefully would not question his employee if he told him what happend and pay all the costs himself?
It would be interesting to know if anyone else has this in their contract and it has not caused any issues.0 -
If its a small company I'd expect the excess to under a grand.
Its only major corporations that have 10million pound retentions etc0 -
Phew even so - that would be the excess and then garage costs, right off, etc - the mind boggles if you didn't feel you were negligent. Then with the need to keep your job.
I can understand the employer's problem but as my OH says in his day if you were a bad driver then it was the sack. But now if you were innocent and damage was not your fault who needs a battle if the employer is struggling and looking for funds and thinks you were negligent.0 -
Thank you for your thoughts Inside Insurance and the time you have taken.
I have started another thread as I think, unfairly on my part, I have written too much to expect people to read when their time is precious.0 -
I work for a haulage contractor that has a similar policy regarding accidents. I'm not a driver, but I do know that the company charges the excess to the drivers if there is an accident and the excess is roughly 500 pounds. So it's not unusual.
I've never heard of a company charging for increased premiums however.0
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