Repayment of Fees

BP123456

Afternoon,

Looking as though i may be departing my current company, nothing bad to say about the company, they have put a lot of money and time into my training and development which i appreciate; however i need to move in order to go in the direction i want my career to go.

They have paid for my training course which is £2K/Year, which over 2 years amounts to £4K to pay back.

The employer who have offered me a job said they do not tend to pay for course fees from another company, however they're offering me a very good package, which i can imagine compensates the above factor of having to pay back fees a little.

Can my old employer really expect me to pay in full? Or can i set up an agreement to pay over 5 years or something? As you can Imagine, I haven't got 4K just lying around!! In my contract it just said to be paid if I leave 2 years post completion of my course, which i would be.

Do not want to leave on bad terms, as they have looked after me and I have a lot of time for the people at the company, so i don't really want to wriggle out of paying and rip them off, I just want to repay the amount, but obviously in a way which is fair to both parties...

Any advice?

Thanks

BoJangles_2

Best thing to do is ask them!

Undervalued

They can only lawfully claim a repayment of fees if there was a specific agreement in place. Even then the amount must be reasonable and proportionate. Under most circumstances they will have had some benefit from the training they paid for so this needs to be taken into account.

That said however, you cannot physically stop them from deducting whatever they are claiming from your final month's pay even if that takes it down to zero. If you dispute the amount and can't reach agreement ultimately you would have to take them to court.

TELLIT01

If it's in your contract then of course they can demand the money back. There may be scope to negotiate the amount as they will have benefited from the training you have received.

Undervalued

TELLIT01 wrote: »

If it's in your contract then of course they can demand the money back. There may be scope to negotiate the amount as they will have benefited from the training you have received.

It actually needs a specific agreement to be enforceable. That can be a part of the employment contract if correctly drafted but they would need evidence that the OP had specifically agreed.

This is different to most aspect of an employment "contract" where you are deemed to have accepted it just by turning up and working. There is case law to support this.

Even then, regardless of what was written, the amount reclaimed would still have to be reasonable and proportionate.