I might be misreading this but, on the basis that you're self employed, then you sent an invoice for personal services which hasn't been fully paid and in that situation this appears to be a straightforward letter before action to the company for whom you carried out those services outlining the basis of claim. It's a small claim filed through MCOL to which you'll presumably add the cost of the claim and interest at 8% etc etc. From the given facts, you've got nothing to lose except the filing fee in the event that your claim doesn't succeed for some reason - there's nothing in what you've written to suggest you'd lose but since you don't have the money anyway and since neither of you can claim legal costs I don't see the risk in filing. ss13-27 of the ERA 1996 cover unfair wage deductions but don't apply since you weren't working as an employee. For general reference, the protection offered by this section of the Act is disgracefully weak and only requires an employer to state in writing that deductions for stock and cash shortages can be taken from wages.

If I'm reading your post correctly, you haven't been required to sign the amended terms and conditions until now given an apparent need for some amendments; that being the case, I'd have thought that a request that the requirement for reimbursement start date should be dated closer to the time of actual acceptance of the new terms would be viewed as reasonable since your refusal to accept the new terms would put the employer into the same position except with more acrimony and amendment of the date on the terms and cons would provide the safety net that they're looking for, which is to say you won't be able to expend any more company time and money on training without offering some form of commitment. Sorry about the Victor Hugo sentence but I think that the question has already been answered correctly by other posters although it occurred to me that an amended date might be something to consider offering since it's reasonable and non contentious.

To answer the last question first, bankruptcy in 1996 would not disqualify you from being a company director. It's also entirely legal to register a company name and then not trade although failure to submit accounts, even nil ones, and company returns will get the company removed from the register.

As stated on a previous thread, I own a facility management company and I can confirm that TUPE applies where you are part of an 'organised grouping' (legal way of saying that you're the one who does the work) on a contract which has been lost to another company. You have the right to be consulted over the transfer and the new company is obliged to ask for TUPE details from your current employer who is obliged to disclose them. It would be helpful, in terms of further guidance, if you could advise as to how long you've been working for your current employer and you should note that this length of service isn't tied to this particular contract. I'd ask whether you're in a union or not but, based on my current experience with a disgruntled and dishonest former employee who is being thus represented, I'm not at all sure that this confers any advantage at all. Hand on heart, I believe that the individual would have been better advised to self represent using advice from this site..

I was trying to remember the name of the ET decision (these are mostly for guidelines since they don't bind other Tribunals) which outlined the nominal percentage of work being carried out by any one individual for a service provision change to be applicable for TUPE purposes but can't remember it - I did come across this decision which might be helpful to you. http://www.harbottle.com/an-organised-grouping-of-employees-under-tupe/

There are many people on this forum who'll be particularly well placed to advise on this but as an FM company owner with reasonable experience of TUPE transfers I can say that the 'organised grouping' to whom the protection of TUPE is offered has only ever, in my experience, been extended to those employees actively providing the service(s) contracted for. Typically, an FM company has a number of clients and will have a central function which supports client site functions as a whole and my reading of your post is that your employment would likely not transfer since you appear to perform a supporting company function rather than provide any contracted service. Unless the contract loss is significant to the extent that redundancy is going to be required within your current company, TUPE not being applicable shouldn't necessarily affect your current employment. If redundancy is a likely outcome within your current company as a result of the contract loss then the issue is likely to affect everyone who works in your accounts department since I can't imagine that redundancy selection could be confined solely to those who have worked on this particular contract. If I can remind you, my view is from my business perspective and experience only and there are better qualified contributors on here who may be able to better advise you. Good luck, however it turns out.

I must pay more attention when reading these threads. I was in the middle of composing a reply to some points made then I realised that they've mostly been made by the same person who has a robustly negative opinion of the legal system in general, so much so that anyone who disagrees risks being the recipient of some ad hominem remark for having the cheek to hold different views. So I won't bother. For the benefit of the poster to whom a barbed comment was directed , I can advise that I googled Matlock since I'd never heard of it either - it's an American legal drama which aired from 1986 to 1992. Interestingly, there was a spin off from the series called Jake and the Fatman, which in turn had a spin off called Diagnosis Murder, which I HAVE heard of. And this is the most interesting bit; Dick Van Dyke was the guest star in series 1, episode 1 of Matlock as a villain judge (quite appropriate given the current thread topic) and then he became the central character in the spin off from the spin off.

I read this one with interest - I had a friend who had a similar problem in 2003 (so before the Companies Act 2006) except that he was one of three directors and the other two were redirecting funds and company assets into a company which they had set up for that purpose. Reading the post from Fox Morris, my guess would be that the answer to both of his questions would be in the negative. Setting up a business is time consuming and expensive and the vast majority of people who do it go for the simplest solutions. In the present case, that would have been an off the shelf company with articles taken as read and, at best, a series of e mails and documents outlining the expectations of each of the directors in terms of expected input. This looks like clear breach from the stated facts and, that being the case, there are any number of options available but a prompt board meeting (Friday ideally) would be good in my opinion to establish the intentions of the rogue director who is naturally going to deny the allegations of theft from the shop at which point, in your situation, I'd agree at the meeting to inform the police of the stock and shop losses. The issue of the withheld company monies is naturally going to be an item of discussion as well as being a fact which would be disclosed to the police to assist them in their investigation. Lastly, while there is provision within the Companies Act 2006 for criminal breach of fiduciary duty, I believe (wouldn't swear to it though) that there are few prosecutions since the burden of proof is more troublesome than civil breach and the usual intention is to get the money back rather than send people to prison. I did a google search and think this might help. http://www.inhouselawyer.co.uk/index.php/litigation-a-dispute-resolution/9672-breach-of-fiduciary-duties-director-digs-hole-for-himself

I agree with the general tone of responses on here and in particular the rather generous comments from Atlas01 whose advice you would be very wise to follow - while you may feel aggrieved, your statement suggests that you've acted incredibly badly. If any of the signatories on your 'petition' are people who don't work for your company, you should expect to be dismissed on either or both of two counts; bringing the company into disrepute or breach of the mutual trust and confidence principle. I come on to this site because I think I'm generally motivated by kindness but I'm bound to tell you that if I was your employer, I'd almost certainly dismiss you on the given facts. I'm not going to post on this thread again but if you follow the advice which you've been offered, it's possible that you might be allowed to keep your job. More's the pity - I despise bullies in the workplace and your lynch mob solicitation was an odious thing to do.

Many thanks for that Altobelli - I regret that I'm still not being clear in my response. My specific question to you would be this - is there any legislation which supports your statement that deductions can't take wages below the minimum wage?

Perhaps I wasn't clear - the bit which isn't true in my quoted passage relates to your correlation of deductions with minimum wage. You'll find loads of references on the internet which will outline that the law as applied to wage deductions is found in the Employment Rights Act 1996, ss13-27, and like many others (including a surprising amount of solicitors) might infer from the reference to 'retail workers' that the application is confined to this sector. I assure you that this isn't the case. I won't bore you with the case law (unless you'd like it, of course) but in 1986 the House of Lords elected to interpret the aged Truck Acts of 1896 to uphold the appeal of a petrol shop cashier who had lost 75% of weekly wages to motorists who drove off without paying. This being during the Thatcher years, parliament produced in response the Wages Act 1986 which restored the right of business owners to insure themselves against loss in this way and the Wages Act became the Employment Rights Act ss 13-27 which is the cornerstone of wage deduction law today. It's been challenged since, naturally, in a variety of business models but Mark Freedland's academic opinion of employment as purely contractual has been authorised by subsequent HL decisions , most notably in response to an application of Douglas Brodie that the obvious inequity of the law as it stands would be capable of challenge under the Unfair Contract Terms Act, since an employee is typically contracting with someone who is acting in the course of their business. While that argument has been rejected in England, it's at least theoretically available in Scotland since a different section of UCTA applies. In relation to the facts of the OP as I understand them, the current legislation specifically permits the whole of the last wage, including holiday pay accrued, to be withheld against any sums legitimately owed to the company and the circumstances in which a debt arises post employment don't seem to arise here. Any county court judgement will take into account the ability of the defendant to pay, including the manner in which it's paid, but that area didn't appear to be relevant to the circumstances described in the original question.

I wish that was true but unless the employment is retail, in which case some very limited protection may apply, then the employer can take back overpayments in any way they choose. In addition, genuinely shady employers ( I know of at least one restaurant chain and several bookmakers/petrol station chains) are legally entitled to take money from their employees for stock and cash 'shortages' and, under English law, the effect that this has on minimum wage is immaterial. My reading of this is that the employers have converted the net overpayment into a gross in order to do the original poster a favour for her honesty but that this has backfired a little. Good intentions pave the road, so they say..

First of all, best of luck in whichever venture you choose. I started my first business nearly ten years ago and I'm still self employed now. You get to captain your own ship and while the security of paid sick leave (SSP or otherwise), holidays paid or otherwise and colleagues as friends are about to become a fond and distant memory, you're going to find out now what your actual personal worth is in the commercial market and you won't have to endure having to follow the orders of someone less able than you ever again. Except your customers of course. The bad news, and I owe you my best opinion, is that the framing of your question demonstrates a fairly startling interpretation of contract and employment legislation and I'd recommend that you do a LOT of reading on this subject before you even consider employing someone. Business Link has lots of information on its site and you may be able to get on to a short course somewhere to assist you. There is no requirement to have an 'employment handbook' and a contract of employment is a relationship definition which arises immediately you employ someone. The terms and conditions of employment as required by the Employment Rights Act 1996 are often referred to as the contract but this is dangerously misleading and you mustn't assume that no contract exists in the two month period you have before being required to issue these. I don't know what type of business you're thinking of setting up but it's unlikely that you'd be able to afford employees in the initial stages anyway - they're expensive acquisitions and want holidays and maternity leave and uniforms and computers and stuff and you should only take them on when you're sure you need them. Employees have to be paid on time, every time and you have to make sure that their tax and NI payments are made on time as well - HMRC knocking on your door is every business nightmare. There's a bit of tongue in cheek in the above but on a serious note, don't even consider starting up your own business unless you can see a clear way in to your market and a clear way out if it doesn't go well; losing money is the easiest thing in the world to do and you'll spend more money and make more mistakes in the first year of your first business than you'll ever do again in your whole life and it's a hard way to make a living. You will either be the worlds best employee, working 60-80 hour weeks, or the worlds best boss, giving yourself a three day week and having lots of meetings with suppliers eager to prise your money from your account. I'd urge you to ensure you know your business and your market thoroughly before launching. I've invented a business device - the process started in October 2010 and I'm hoping that beta testing will start in March 2013. I've been prepared, am still prepared, to terminate the whole thing if I discover a flaw which makes the proposed business less than viable. It's cost about £50 000 so far but I'd rather lose that than throw more money away. EDIT - in the interests of strict truth, I should point out that not all the money is mine and that I have outside investors. I'm not one of those crazy millionaires that you read about in the newspapers

I'm having difficulty in understanding your specific problem and I'm curious as to whether I'm missing something. The summary of your situation is, if I understand correctly, that you were asked to collect a package and that you double checked that policy had been followed before doing so. Is that correct? If it is, then I think that my actions would have been identical on the given facts. No harm in double checking anything.

Interesting points on either side of this argument but I'd put myself firmly into the 'shouldn't be chargeable' camp. If my negligence causes damage, and a court tells me that I am required to make a contribution, I'll mumble and grumble but I'll pay up because that's what courts are for. The extent to which I am liable will be a matter for the police, CPS and court to decide and will be reflected in points, fines, damages and maybe even prison - arbitrary costs determined by profit making companies, whether the amounts could be judged as fair and reasonable or not, aren't what I signed up for. I reject the proposition that cleaning up after accidents isn't included within road maintenance. The beneficiary of this revenue is not the taxpayer or reduced bills to the council, it's increased profit for whichever company has taken the contract on for a particular section of road; doubtless a large company which has undercut smaller local companies and which is hoping to increase its margins by the imposition of it's 'fair and reasonable' costs. I so badly wanted to put 'cui bono' into the above sentence but it didn't fit anywhere

So very, very depressing - the last time I looked at the figures, I think that around 7% of companies controlled about 90% of the economy. Good for offshore tax funds, not so much for individuals. And, from what I've read on here, it appears that anyone in the quango chain can make sanctions happen.

Sorry, I should redress the balance at this point a little bit - I've just remembered that I worked with a company called Intraining in Leicestershire and they were, in my experience at least, outstanding. They provided me with five employees over the course of two years and I had no indication at any point that they were anything less than respectful and supportive to the people who were using their services. They gave me a cup of tea and a bacon roll and negotiated well in the joint interest of the applicant and the company. I dealt with three different offices and they all seemed to be the same. The people who came for interviews wanted the positions and any one of them would have been suitable. That worked out well at one site - the caretaker left the job and his replacement was immediate from the bank of previous applicants.

I didn't hire my current admin junior because of her experience (which was almost non existent) or qualifications (nil) - I hired her because she'd put an ad on Craigslist and sent me a CV with NO spelling or grammar errors which put her immediately into the top 5% of applicants. Ours is a facility management company (cleaning, reactive and planned maintenance, building managers, caretakers, drivers etc) so I have different expectations according to the sought position but I can say that if I received an application for a cleaner which was free of errors, I'd be pushing that person towards fast track promotion if their work was as good as their application. I mention that only to say this; I have a lot of friends in the legal profession and when I brought up the issue of CV spelling mistakes they all (except the City firms) said that they have exactly the same problem with people applying for trainee solicitor positions so I'm minded to think that this is a benchmark which would apply for all professions. It saddens me that the most important document that a person will ever produce in their life can possibly be allowed to have any mistakes in it but I'm mindful that people who work in Job Centres are easily capable of being unfit for purpose in terms of CV checking and that not everyone has a network of friends who will review CVs so I modify my expectations. So, the answer to your question is this - if you sent me a CV and the covering letter contained the paragraph above from the 'I'm 39' bit, which reveals something about you the person, then I promise you that we'd at least have a phone conversation and likely a coffee at Starbucks. Maybe not the BS bit, right enough. I can't emphasise strongly enough how much I understand that and I wish I knew how to convince people who are long term unemployed that the sneering, patronising attitude of government bodies and quangos does not represent the views of employers or people generally. From reading the posts on this thread, it seems to be a system which is designed to mask the economic failure of government by blaming the victims and I beg anyone not to allow themselves to be defined by their employment status. I don't offer employment to every applicant but it's usually because their skill set won't match my skill need - it's not intended as a personal rejection and if there's a way in which I can make that plain to applicants that someone can tell me, I promise that I'll use it in future. Much needed light relief there, for which I thank you - it's a serious topic and your analogy cheered me up. One of my suppliers is gay (he politically incorrectly refers to heterosexuals as 'breeders') and is fond of saying that the difference between a straight guy and a gay guy is four pints of lager.

I appreciate the feedback, but my understanding is that slander which alleges criminal action is actionable per se and that no damages need to be proved beyond the 'reasonable opinion' malarkey. Being banned by the shopping centre at the same time as having been banned from a shop would surely be highly persuasive in demonstrating that slanderous comments had been made to a third party, a position from which the shopping centre would only be able to help its tenant by offering another reasonable explanation. 'We don't have to give a reason' would, on the given facts, drop TK Maxx into a heap of problems. Defamation actions can be ridiculously expensive but although there have been one or two contingency actions, if memory serves correctly, I do agree that this would be the biggest stumbling block for many people. The annoying thing is that it's almost certainly a high court issue; in common (doubtless) with many other people on here, I've found that a properly prepared claim which meets all the cpr requirements becomes almost a shoo-in if you're litigant in person and the other side use an expensive solicitors firm

I'm an employer and made the mistake of taking on someone provided by Ingeus once; I'd never ever do it again and Ingeus CVs (they're instantly identifiable) are automatically declined. The employee was disinterested after the third day (it was, in fairness, very dull work) but she encountered a lot of pressure from her adviser to remain in a job which she obviously hated and it all became very acrimonious. Also, and perhaps more controversially, I utterly despise companies who accept offers of free labour in the guise of 'work trials' and think it's shameful for any organisation to exploit the reduced circumstances of an individual in order to achieve material benefit. I don't know whether this is good advice or not but the last two people I took on came from Craigslist Resumes section - my rationale is that someone who has gone to the trouble of uploading to CL or Gumtree is generally going to be worth more than a second look.

I agree with all of the above posts but would be grateful for a clarification on a point of law, if anyone can help. As noted above, TK MAXX are free to ban any individual from their premises for no reason at all as is the shopping centre in which it's based. My question, and one I'd raise in a hurry in the circumstances of the original post if it was me, would be based on the issue of defamation on the grounds that an agent of the shop had obviously made a slanderous remark to a third party (in this case an agent of the shopping centre). Given that the TK Maxx employee has presumably made a statement regarding the poster which alleges criminal action, I'd have thought that this would be slander per se and that the RLP letter, together with any documentation which may exist as a result of communication in relation to the incident(s) with both the shopping centre security guard and TK MAXX would be sufficient to retain the interest of a contingency lawyer. Probably not Schillings, admittedly, since I'd guess that SRA conflict of interest principles would apply but there are lots and lots of firms out there. All that said, I get the feeling I'm missing something obvious which negates the above so any pointers appreciated.

Thank you both for responding - while I'm on CAG primarily to become better informed on consumer issues, it's pleasant to exchange points of view as well. I don't insist on the points I made although I think that any discussion on the subject should be aware of wider implications but the reference to Denning was a nod to allowing recording. He was passionate about the accountability of judges and the right of the press to monitor proceedings; "in the darkness of secrecy all sorts of things can go wrong. If things are really done in public you can see that the judge does behave himself, the newspapers can comment on it if he misbehaves — it keeps everyone in order". Your suspicion is entirely correct - although I recognise that the judiciary is composed largely of ex public school and Oxbridge graduates, it's a lamentable fact that there is no profession where this isn't the case at senior levels and the legal system is doing more than medicine, banking or journalism to at least partially address the societal imbalance. In that sense, then, it isn't 'fair'. Similarly, I'd have to be highly optimistic to assume that the dilution of the powers of the Lord Chancellor removed political patronage from the judicial system but I'd argue that it's a large step in the right direction. So not exactly 'free' either. But this is, as far as I can see, as good as it gets. It's not perfect, but nothing ever is.

I think there are some arguments either way in terms of filming trials and the ones against them can't be lightly overlooked. Filming a rape trial, for example, compels the legal system to either remove the accusers right to anonymity or further stigmatise the reputation of a defendant later found to be innocent. Cameras in a court could intimidate juries and witnesses and would, if widely available, jeopardise the right of someone to a fair trial at any point in the future. We should, as members of the public, be aware of the decisions of courts and the reasons which lead to them but in a criminal trial wide publication puts paid to any notion of the innocent until proven guilty presumption which is its cornerstone. That's not why I responded to the thread, though. While there are always going to be judges with questionable reasoning (James Pickles created a few headlines, may he rest in peace) I loved reading the careful and measured decisions of judges when I was studying and I think it's a bit harsh to dismiss judicial process on the basis that some judges are less able than others. When I saw this post, I immediately remembered Lord Denning in whose defence I was automatically motivated to respond but then I remembered Lord Wedderburn and was saddened to note that he died this year. Lord Wedderburn spent his working life dedicated to the knowledge that one man will never be equal to the power of his employer and was instrumental in ensuring, so far as he was able, that union and employment law reflected the imbalance. For anyone interested, the Wiki entry for Denning has some excellent extracts from his judgements in his 'storytelling' style - for what it's worth, he'd probably have agreed with the original poster's argument that cameras should be allowed in court. And his opinion is worth WAY more than mine.. Lastly, it's incorrect to say that we have a right to do as we wish as long as we don't cause loss or injury - selling drugs, carrying a knife or a gun, working as an underage prostitute, driving while drunk and walking naked down the street don't cause direct injury or loss to anyone as far as I can see but I'm glad that they are all illegal activities.

Yours is a point of view which is (regrettably) overlooked and I have every sympathy with your desire to retain your land for your own use, something which I and people like me tend to forget when we're being hustled by private parking companies. I think that your approach is required to be necessarily diplomatic but do think that you may have to consider whether you can afford some form of exit control for your premises. It's regrettable that, in asserting our rights, we sometimes overlook our responsibilities and I hope that someone has a practical answer to your reasonable question.

Maybe Pixie was complimenting the quality of the letter There have been hundreds of thousands of these invoices/begging letters/Santa notes left on cars and I was under the genuine impression that no one falls for it any more until my eyes were opened a bit by CAG. I do remember trawling a few years ago for court cases and finding 1 (to avoid any doubt, I found a single case) where the parking company had successfully pursued an action in Newcastle but I've since learned that the prevailing theory in relation to this case was that the defendant was a possible shill. Years ago I used to get into arguments and send off letters to DVLA, Trading Standards, OFT, CEOs and anyone else I could think of when I got any of these, but the day I learned that one of the larger company's acting solicitor firms, Graham White solicitors, only had one solicitor who was a retired housing lawyer from (I believe) Hackney council, I stopped taking anything they said or wrote seriously and started having fun with them instead. My favourite pastime was to let them phone me and then repeat the last word of every sentence they said until they got annoyed and hung up but sometimes I just enjoyed general chat as well. Happy days.. Anyway, if you're not looking for any harmless hobby to while away the hours it's safe to ignore the letters. There is no fine, there is no penalty, there are some bits of paper which a company is trying to sell you for £50.00. You can get more for your money elsewhere, would be my view.