Resigning with immediate effect - Breach of contract?

Majestic12

To be fair you should not have interviewed for a job which requires a quick start when you knew you had a 4 week notice.

I suppose you could reason with your employer and negotiate something lower, like 2 weeks. I would also agree with not burning bridges and risking a bad reference, which will almost certainly happen if you jump ship just like that.

Southend1

How would you feel if your employer decided to sack you with no notice?!

Jakg

It's not the best start to your new employment by screwing the old one.

The new employer probably also requires a months notice to leaving employees, so it's hardly fair they demand an immediate start.

If you negotiate - I'm sure you'll be able to reduce it slightly. I had to give 4 weeks notice, and my immediate manager kindly offered me a compromise of 3 weeks and 6 days... I eventually got it down to 2 weeks.

RancidM

your first action for a new employer should not be to !!!! on your current employer.

it speaks volumes about the new employer that they would be willing to allow you to take such action.

BillJones

Annisele wrote: »

I think the worst case is that old employer contacts your new employer and gives a (truthful) unsatisfactory reference to say you breached your contract, your new employer fires you as a result, and then your old employer sues you for breach of your contract. I don't think that's all that likely to happen - but it's possible.

I think that if we found out that a new employee had breached their previous contract in this way that we'd be quite likely to let them go. It's not a great way to start, finding out that they'll ignore agreements when they feel that it suits them to do so.

jobbingmusician

Undervalued wrote: »

Well technically it wouldn't be lawful for them to make that deduction. That doesn't mean to say they won't though!

As others have stated above they could potentially make a claim against the OP for any unavoidable losses the breach of contract causes. However they don't have the right to simply make a deduction to that effect. If they did they too would technically be in breach of contract.

Two wrongs don't make a right. Nixon tried three but that didn't work either!

I absolutely agree - probably not well expressed on my part