Employment soilicitors

TadleyBaggie

Be careful with solicitors, they can be a slippery bunch.

My employment was recently terminated but because the company didn't want hassle they offered to pay me as if I had been redundant but above the statutory amount. So they gave me a settlement agreement and said they needed to be reviewed and signed by a qualified employment solicitor. They said they would pay the solicitors fees up to £500 + VAT. I contacted a local solicitor who quoted £220 + VAT an hour, but capped at £500 + VAT.

So I got the agreement reviewed, there were a couple of points that needed clarification but no actual negotiations required. I was told my ex-company would be billed directly and if I received an invoice it could be ignored.

So a week after the agreement was signed I duly received an invoice for £350, so I ignored as advised. Three months later I get a letter asking to pay the outstanding invoice, so I called them up. It seems that they did bill my ex-company the full amount and this invoice was additional charges above this. At this point I pointed out the paragraph in their letter to me indicating the fee would be capped. The result was they immediately agreed to waive the additional fees, as it hadn't been made clear to me that this could happen.

Moral of this story, file everything away.

Going back the original question by the OP, I was required to provide two forms of identification. One had to have a photo (either driving licence or passport), the other was a recent utility bill, bank statement etc. This was to comply with anti-money laundering checks.

MEM62

Undervalued wrote: »

Indeed but, as the OP has said, she is being offered more than the statutory minimum. If the firm are doing that then they are quite entitled to make it conditional on a settlement agreement to protect themselves against any possible claim.

Agreed, but the OP needs to be aware of the circumstances under which they are leaving the company. They are not being made redundant. Most companies will pay more that stat redundancy in these cases as they will view this is paying for a potential future problem to go away. A compromise agreement is not redundancy and the company is free to re-employ.

Further, whilst with a settlement agreement it is customary for the firm to pay towards the employee's legal advice, it is not actually obligatory that they do. For the agreement to be valid the employee must be advised by either a solicitor or a specially trained trades union representative and the advisor must have insurance to indemnify them against any claim for bad advice. However, who pays for that advice is not stipulated.

I stand corrected :-)

...................