DIY Protective Award

luizarios4

Hello,

One day we all turned up to work to find the company had got into administration, there was around 50 employees, all sent home without consultation. Months later one of my colleagues has phoned me to talk about the protective award, he spoke to a lawyer and they wanted to move a group action so the more people the less we'd pay. Letter from the solicitors stated the following fees:

Employment Tribunal group claim fee: £1,000
Fee to hear the claim: £3,800

So £4,800 will be divided over the number of employees on the group claim (eg. if 30 people then each will pay £160). Additionally they also want 17.5% solicitor's fee from what we earn.

I've been googling around to see if it's possible to do a DIY claim (that is claiming without the solicitors) but I can't find much at all.

Question 1: has anyone done a DIY claim rather than using a solicitor? Was it too complicated?

Question 2: some employees have decided to not join the group claim. From some Google searches it seems that once this claim is awarded to the employees of that company, everybody gets it (even the ones who were not part of the claim), is that true? Could these selfish people be opting out so they get the award without having to collaborate on the fees?

sangie595

Yes you can do itself. But if it was more than three months ago then nobody can do it! The deadline for claims to an employment tribunal is three months less a day