Returning car after redundancy 13 October 2019 at 8:00PM edited 30 November -1 at 12:00AM in Redundancy & Redundancy Planning 17 replies 4.6K views

mazzer13

Hi there, I was made redundant last week and my redundancy letter states I have to return the company car etc on of before the 20th of this month. The options they have given me is to take it to the head office (5 hours away) or a satellite office (3 hours drive away) Both are remote locations and there is no offer to help me get back home. The anxiety of going to any of the offices is weighing on my mind as I have no one who can pick me up from either location and I don’t want to see any of my old colleagues. It’s it common that that one would have to return the car after they made me redundant spot should they be making provisions to retrieve the car? There is a ,local manager who I can drop the laptop and work phone off with but delivering the car back is just too much given the distance and no assistance to get back. I only git two weeks notice. Any help greatly appreciated!

Davy_Jones_II

Get a taxi to the nearest train or bus station, or pay for a driver

McKneff

National express or Megabus....

McKneff

How long had worked for them

keepcalmandstayoutofdebt

Never make it easy do they, is there not an existing colleague to come and pick up the vehicle or drop it halfway in a central location.

Years ago I remember going in from Braintree's A120 to Loughton to be told within the hour of getting into work, we were being made redundant on a Monday morning, always kind of wondered why they didn't write to everyone recorded on the Saturday morning but that would have been to easy. After all they needed the parking fobs from us.

Xbigman

What does your contract say? Just because a letter says its up to you to return the car it might not be. If it is up to you Its train bus or coach time.




Darren

singhini

Ive previously worked at a company who operated in a very similar way (there was nothing specific in my contract saying I had to return the car. Only thing it mentioned is the car needs to be returned in the same condition that it was given to me and that £300 will be held back from my final salary to cover any damage and that this money will be returned upto 2 weeks post inspection of the car separately should no damage be found).
What fleet Dpt would say is that if you were within a 3 hour drive you were required to return the car and only those people who were more than 3 hours away would get a one-way hire car back (I lived within 1 hour of head office). Anyhow I got lucky, when I was made redundant and was having my meeting with HR + my line manager I asked if they would kindly organise me one-way hire back home and my manager said yes because it was the company making me redundant). Fleet dpt then cross-charged the money against his annual budget.

Another colleague who was in a different sales team and who also was within 1 hour of head office had to arrange their own hire car and organised the hire company to collect him from head office and drive back to their depot and then drove home and the car was collected by the local car hire depot from his drive (think he paid £35).

Might be worth you speaking to your line manager or HR or fleet Dept (otherwise your going to need to organise a hire car / look into trains / other options.

bengalknights

driiveme might be a option if your close to one of there rental locations

Blatchford

If you hand the car over to anyone else and its damaged, then they will be perfectly entitled to come after you. Even if it isn't, how do you prove it wasn't. It really doesn't matter what other people might have done. Or even what you want you do. It would be very foolish to do anything other than what you have been told to and get a signed receipt that the car is ok.

blue.peter

What were the arrangements when you received the car? Did you have to go to a distant place to collect it, or was it delivered to you? Might the company repeat that arrangement, whatever it was?

Have you tried talking to someone appropriate at the company to explain the problem and see if they'll compromise?

I'm wondering if the letter that you cite might be in a standard form that doesn't consider unusual siuations. It's possible that the letter just gives the standard requirement, and that the company might be willing to be a bit more reasonable in your case.

The only time I've ever been involved in a situation like this was many years ago, when I was a very junior member of staff in a branch office. My manager took me out to another town, from where I had to drive my former colleague's car back to the office. (The car in question was a Morris Marina, which'll give you some idea of the date!) Maybe something of this sort could be arranged for you?

If you have to see a solicitor to discuss the redundancy in general (e.g., for advice on a compromise agreement), it'd be worth raising this issue with them then.

elsien

Why do you want to avoid your old colleagues? There's no shame in redundancy, just one of those things. Unless there's a bit more going on here.