Help - can my mum keep her cleaner?

KiKi

So, let's keep these two things separate: your parent has a contract with the agency, and the agency has (or had) a contract with the cleaner.  These two things are not related.

Your parent needs to end the relationship with the agency and say they no longer need the services of a cleaner. Forget *this* specific cleaner - they don't want any cleaner from this agency, end of.  End the relationship, and say you will go elsewhere for cleaning services from now on.  If your parent never had any or signed any terms with the agency, then this is straightforward; if they did, you will need to check what they said.  (Some organisations have terms which state if they find you someone, and then you decide to continue a relationship privately - ie, cut them out when they did the initial work - they want to continue to benefit from that private relationships financially for a period of time.)

The cleaner presumably now works for themselves.  If your parent wishes to, they can approach this freelance cleaner to do work for them.  If the freelance cleaner had a contract with the agency which says they can't 'steal' clients within a specific period of time, that cleaner may choose to say no.  If they say yes, they may owe the agency money based on the fact that they are 'taking' the agency's client away from them.

Whether the agency is any good or not, whether the cleaner had lots of work with them or not, whether your parent pays them directly or not is all irrelevant here.  The facts are simply about the contract your parent has with the cleaner, and the contract the cleaner has / had with the agency.  HTH.

Undervalued

yellowelise said:

The cleaner is self employed and their T&C’s state this clearly. I have asked them. 

The cleaner has not approached my parents, my parents wish to approach the cleaner to keep them.

My parents have no contract or agreed terms with the ‘agency’ which is actually a person who who finds cleaners for people. They do however pay the agency weekly in arrears.

Edit - I was about to post this but KiKi has beaten me to it...

Yes they DO have a contract. They paid them money in return for a service. That forms a contract. As I said earlier a contract doesn't have to be a document with the word "contract" on it!

Grumpy_chap

yellowelise said:

Since then they have had long periods of not receiving any work from this agency (up to 8 months) and been employed for this time with another firm. 

Who did the cleaning for your Mum during these long periods when the Cleaner did not receive any work from the Agency? 

yellowelise

I get that they are paying for a service they are getting but why should that stop them going elsewhere?

if I eat in Pizza Hut And get a pizza then I am happy to pay for it.
but if tomorrow I want a pizza from Pizza express, I wouldn’t expect Pizza Hut to threaten me????

Dakta

It doesn't stop them going elsewhere, if they want a completely different cleaner from a different service provider then I doubt there would be anything stopping them.

The issue here is they want the agency cleaner without the agency, whilst the agency cleaner might be washing their hands of the agency that doesn't mean the agency is out of the loop.

My brother was trained by a company that put him in a placement in a second company - the company he was placed with asked him to stay and go permanent for them alone and as a result of that they had to fork out quite a few thousand pounds to 'buy him' from the company that found him the placement, it was either that or go work somewhere else until a time had elapsed and come back. There was no magic bullet here the money got paid. 

Whatever one feels about agencies, they do need to be able to protect themselves from people cutting them out and the protection is generally written into the contracts - most will state that you can't employ someone they provided direct for some time, or require a payment if so.

Could someone else not hire the cleaner directly? I'm going to presume any contract is going to be between your parents and the agency so whilst they're in a pickle it might be worth exploring if someone else who isnt party to any existing contracts could hire the cleaner to do the same work.

MalMonroe

Any agency will want an 'introduction fee'. Some time ago I worked for a secretarial agency as a temporary secretary and they would send me out to companies who needed a temporary secretary for a specific period of time. The agency was my employer and paid me as any other employer pays staff, except that the places I worked at changed every few weeks. I worked at quite a few places but the companies never paid me directly as I was agency staff.

Eventually one of the companies wanted to offer me a permanent post BUT the agency, as per the contract they had with all their customers (i.e. companies who wanted temporary secretarial help) said that they had to charge their usual 'introduction fee'. Fortunately the company was not put off by that and paid up. But I didn't come cheap!

It's the same with any agency worker. The agency sends them out and they are employed by that agency. Because the cleaner who worked at your parents' property was employed by the agency, that agency now wants to be paid an introduction fee by the people who want to employ the cleaner. That is, your parents. 

If the agency had never sent that particular cleaner to your parents, they would never have met her, or known about her at all. So that is why they want paying. 

Of the cleaner you say, "they have no contract with the agency in question only a one page document entitled ”personal assistant terms and conditions” which they signed in 2019".  That document is a contract and it's been signed by the cleaner which means she accepted those terms and conditions. Most importantly, had it not been for that agency - by your own admission - the cleaner would not have had any work at all. 

It would be sensible for you, or your parents, to ask the cleaner if they can have sight of that document, in order to find out exactly what the terms and conditions are. As the cleaner was actually employed by the agency, there must be something in those T&Cs explaining what will happen if the cleaner is asked to work directly for clients rather than via the agency.

As others have said, your parents do have a contract with the agency because they pay that agency for the services they receive from a cleaner. And there should be some paperwork somewhere to prove that. I feel that the agency will have copies of all the relevant documents, otherwise they would not be threatening court action. But you and your parents and the cleaner also need to find and read any relevant documents.

Diamandis

How much money are they asking for?

HampshireH

yellowelise said:

Yes, sorry
she found the cleaner through the agency and pays the agency.

What exactly do they pay the agency? Only this post above says they pay the agency and then another post says they don't (below).

Nothing has ever been in writing. We have certainly never agreed any long term payment or service it is week by week in arrears. In fact my parent actually pays the cleaner in cash on behalf of the agent.

silvercar

yellowelise said:

I get that they are paying for a service they are getting but why should that stop them going elsewhere?

if I eat in Pizza Hut And get a pizza then I am happy to pay for it.
but if tomorrow I want a pizza from Pizza express, I wouldn’t expect Pizza Hut to threaten me????

To continue your analogy. You now want to eat a pizza hut pizza but buy it from pizza express. 

Undervalued

yellowelise said:

I get that they are paying for a service they are getting but why should that stop them going elsewhere?

if I eat in Pizza Hut And get a pizza then I am happy to pay for it.
but if tomorrow I want a pizza from Pizza express, I wouldn’t expect Pizza Hut to threaten me????

That is because you didn't have an ongoing contract with Pizza Hut for the supply of Pizza!

What is happening here (arguably) is that the OP's mother had a contract with an agency to supply her with a regular cleaner. They think she is enticing the cleaner to leave the agency and work directly for her, thereby cutting out the middle man.