Advice needed about notice period please

Growlybear

I would be extremely grateful for any advice about ny husband's employment situation please.


He has been working as a freelance quantity surveyor for a contractor since February 2017. At the time he started work for this company, an annual salary was agreed, and he has been invoicing the company on a monthly basis. He has spent all of his time with this company working on one particular project, which is nearing completion, with just work left on the final account. It appears that there is no new work available for him, and he was told yesterday that he will not be needed after next week.


At the time he started with the company he was given a letter of appointment, which stated that he would receive a formal contract in due course. He has realised that this never materialised.


Could anyone advise me please if he is entitled to more than a week's notice, having worked for the company for nearly two years? Many thanks for reading.

Masomnia

Freelancing and invoicing them? If he's self employed (genuinely) then he isn't even going to be entitled to a week's notice I'm sorry to say.

If not genuinely self employed he can try to bring a claim for the notice period, and probably holiday pay too if they haven't been paying him that. He would have to convince a tribunal that he was an employee the whole time and not self employed though.

jonnygee2

At the time he started with the company he was given a letter of appointment, which stated that he would receive a formal contract in due course. He has realised that this never materialised.

When you are self employed, it's really important to look after these kinds of things. At least this can be taken as a lesson.

Masomnia is right, he probably can't do much about notice. But the good news is that Quantity Surveyors are hugely in demand right now, so he'll probably pick something up very soon.

Annisele

Even if your husband is an employee, I think it's unlikely he'll be entitled to more than a week's notice.

According to ACAS, employees with more than one month but less than two years of service are entitled to one week's notice (unless they have a contract giving more, which it appears your husband doesn't). Unfortunately almost two years doesn't count until it is actually two years of service.

TELLIT01

If he is classed as a worker or employee, can't he be dismissed with one week notice anyway if there is nothing to the contrary in a contract and he's been working for them for less than 2 years?
As he is invoicing the company for his time each month it certainly looks very much as if he is self employed.

Growlybear

Thank you very much for the replies. He is definitely self employed. I just wanted to be clear about the situation before he leaves, so the answers have clarified this.

System

If he is self employed then the notice needing to be given is what is in his terms of business that he got the client, the company he has been doing work for, to sign.

Assuming that like many people he didn't do the job properly so had no terms of business that the client had to agree to then he can be told at 10am that he's no longer required. He's not even got a right to be paid on time nor paid at all as there is no contract to specify that and as well as that he can be held 100% liable for any costs and losses arising from anything he did there as again, nothing in a contract to say he isn't.