Certainly . The 3 month rule is in the contracts that the practice has with the end clients. It isn't artificial

Thanks for the welcome but I'm not actually all that new to CAG, although I usually post in different forums to this one. The three month deadline isn't common but it exists. The reason for the disciplinary seems to be based on an allegation that a large sum of money has been lost due to my wife's negligence, although neither of these are true. The loss is zero, although there have been losses in the past for various reasons we don't believe that they are the reason for the action. The 150 are a combination of reporting error (they show as unpaid when they have, in fact been paid) and work packets that are passed the 3 month deadline but will be paid anyway My wife is still at work, we are waiting for a date for the formal disciplinary hearing but are pushing for it to be put back to give us time to find a solicitor and construct a defence

My wife has worked for the past ten years at an accounting partnership in the billing department. Her job is to bill work done by the fee earning partners. The basic outline of the process is as follows 1. The accountant completes the work for the client and advises the secretarial team that the work has completed, what the work was and what the fee should be via a form 2. The secretarial team collate all the necessary paperwork and submit it to the accounts department 3. The accounts department bill the client, chase any outstanding bills, then pay the accountant the billed fee minus a 15% cut to cover the admin costs There is a three month contractual deadline starting at the completion of the work, after which the fees, if not billed, will no longer be payable . It can be seen from the above that there are 3 people involved in the billing process, each of which has to complete their work in a timely manner to ensure that the fees can be billed. There have been a number of problems over the years where the process hasn’t completed in time and fees have been lost. The causes of this are many and varied but include the secretaries not submitting the paperwork to the accounts room, the secretaries not updating the work flow system that the work packet is complete (which would alert the accounts department to the start of the three month countdown) and various problems within the accounts department itself. Historically, attempts to resolve the out of time bills have been undertaken by the Admin Director because the two people in the accounts department were already hard pressed to process the volume of non-contentious bills. Various attempts were also made to implement systems that would prevent the three month deadline being missed in future. These were met with varying degrees of success but systemic problems remained. There are therefore two elements to the problem: A systemic problem that allows work packets to go unbilled and a managerial problem of what to do with the those work packets that miss the deadline A year ago the partnership merged with another partnership. In addition to the upheaval associated with any merger, the post of Admin Director was made redundant and the incumbent post holder left. The responsibilities of the Admin Director were absorbed into a newly created role of Chief Finance and Administration officer. The merger resulted in the number of accountants increasing from 40 to 110. There was no corresponding increase in the number of people in the accounts department. A few months after the merger, my wife’s colleague left leaving my wife to process all the bills herself. At this point she started working 12 – 14 hour days to get through the work load. Several months after that two more people were recruited to work in the accounts room followed by a third person to handle the admin (photocopying etc.). However, my wife is still having to work 12 -14 hour days to get through the work load because, of the two new recruits, one is incompetent and is now only allowed to bill the most simple situations and the other is lazy. My wife has raised the laziness with their mutual boss the Chief Finance and Administration officer, who has agreed that there were concerns as to his performance . Out of the blue my wife received a letter advising her that she was being investigated for gross misconduct because there were 150 bills that had passed the three month deadline. She wasn’t advised who had made the allegation nor what the specifics of it were. At the investigative meeting the investigator was extremely aggressive and refused to listen to my wife’s attempts to explain the process but instead repeatedly referred to her job description and said that she was responsible and it was therefore all her fault. She handed a statement and a large amount of documentary evidence in support of her case to the investigator. This documentation included the job description for the Chief Finance and Administration officer, which makes clear that it is this person that is ultimately responsible for all billing. In return she got the work flow system references for the 150 unbilled work packets The report of the investigation has now been completed and the investigator has decided to recommend that she face a disciplinary hearing for gross misconduct. He has concluded that it is my wife and my wife alone that is entirely responsible for the 150 bills not being done in time and has ignored both the written statement that she supplied and all the evidence that supported it. The tone of the report is extremely nasty and, I presume in an attempt to justify a gross misconduct charge, makes a number of unsubstantiated slurs as to my wife’s integrity and ability to do the job. My wife has done some analysis of the 150 work packets and discovered that less than half are unbilled. The remainder are a combination of either billed and paid or closed in preference for another work packet under which all the clients concurrent work was billed (so as to produce one big invoice rather than a number of small invoices). Of those that are unbilled, most are stuck in the secretarial department but, for reasons too complex to go into here, all will be paid. I have never been involved in anything like this and, although learning fairly quickly would appreciate some tactical advice as to how to defend this. My initial thought was to raise a grievance against the investigator for bias and failing to investigate properly but I suspect that this may be better saved for the tribunal that appears to be the inevitable result of all this: My feeling is that, post-merger, my wife’s face no longer fits and she is being forced out with the disciplinary process being used as a cover. This is ironic really because if they had made her a generous offer to go quietly I’m sure she would have accepted. I’d appreciate any help or advice that anyone is able to give here, particularly anyone with experience and a view on tactics. Its unclear where all of this is coming from, although the investigation was instigated by the Senior Partner but we don't know whether it was of his own volition or in response to a complaint or allegation. As we understand it, all staffing issues should be decided by the management committee and we would like to see the minutes of the meeting that decided to charge my wife with gross misconduct. If we ask for them are they obliged to disclose?

Have two threads got mixed here? I was reading an interesting thread from Miki123 and their various respondents, then suddenly there's lots of stuff about the police, the council and squatters!?

That's obviously quite an oblique reference that you won't be able to clarify but if what I'm thinking is even close; ROFL

Not withstanding what Coniff has said is it worth pointing out that the section 21 notice appears to be invalid due to the absence of the proscribed terms

Might be worth posting something in the insurance thread?

Applegirl, I have a great second hand car here. One lady owner, only drove it to the shops. A financially savvy person like yourself must be able to see the bargain that I'm offering. How about £7.5k?

Steve, seriously, take a step back and review what Ed999 has told you. I'm not a lawyer and I've had my disagreements with Ed but I have to say that he's making a very valid point and you're fighting the wrong battle. You wont get a judicial review of the "ombudsman's" decision because the ombudsman doesn't exist in law. There is therefore nothing for the judiciary to make a judgement on. There are so many very real issues that you could be fighting on that would benefit tenants, why fight a spurious cause against an enemy that has no legal validity?

Steve, your advice is generally fantastic and I defer to your greater knowledge but OP is not the landlord. LL is getting rent from everyone and seemingly doesn't care about OPs issues. I think OP needs more constructive advice than issuing 21 notice, which, as tenant, they cannot do (as much as they may wish to!). Apologies if I missed something.

For corporation tax bills of £10k & 8k the company must have made a profit of around £50,000 & £40,000. Why can't the corporation tax be paid out of this £90,000?

What is converse about your final sentence? Everything you have written is from the perspective of the landlord, including the sentence that starts "Conversely"

Could someone more knowledgeable than me tell me if someone being evicted due to repossession by a lender is regarded as that person making themselves intentionally homeless? This seems to be the crux and origin of the Ops problem. In respect of the eviction from the B&B by the council can the mods please cross-post this to residential lettings where the OP is more likely to get meaningful advice in respect of this aspect of his problems?

Don't rely on anything that Dibben says; she seem pretty clueless about consumer rights and legislation. I have a laugh most weeks at her advice

Seriously pentiumofborg talk to an accountant. You're starting a business so will need to at some point, even if you trade as class 2 self-employed (which I assume you're intending. If you don't know what I mean you definitely need to speak to an accountant.) I'm confused about your accommodation proposals. Aren't you renting a desk and office somewhere? If so the subject of using part of your home is irrelevent. In any event, as I understand it, you are allowed to use part of your home as an office without needing to declare it as business premises but I am neither a lawyer nor an accountant

Why then did you contribute a load of unhelpful spam about shorthold and common law tenancies?

Do you have any evidence to back up what you're saying about the OP not having an AST? The only reason I ask is that I shared a property with the landlady (although she only used it as an office during the day) but the judge in my case decided I had an AST on the basis of my exclusive occupation of the bedroom. I've never read anything about shared houses automatically being occupied under license. I have, however, read on several occasions of shared accommodation being either a single tenancy with joint and several liability for the tenants or a collection of individual ASTs

Or her

When did you move in and how long is the fixed period for (i.e. how long was the rental for)? You say the house is shared: Does the landlord or any member of his family live in the property? I am not a lawyer but my understanding is that any notice to quit must contain the "prescribed information" here http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/1988/2201/schedule/made. It doesn't matter whether it actually says "section 21" (and if you are a licensee rather than a tenant you won't be entitled to section 21 notice anyway) provided it contains the linked information.

I don't think OP has a problem signing. Rather it's the payment of the agent's fees that is the issue. I suspect that the LL, were they to be aware of the circumstances, would be quite happy to allow the periodic tenancy to continue. To me this situation smacks of the all too common practice of the agent bullying the tenant into paying unneccessary fees

You can take him to court for however much you like but I think it unlikely that you'll get more than the reasonable notice that you were entitled to. As a rule of thumb this means one week if the rent was due to be paid weekly and one month if it was due to be paid monthly.

If you signed an agreement (for whatever) why do you think that you can't (or shouldn't) be held to it?

Thanks for the best laugh since I was in court with my lunatic ex-landlady. She committed legal suicide in much the same way as yours and was just as crazy. It's like they totally misunderstand the whole thing and think that all they need to do is turn up and convince the judge that, "actually, I'm a jolly decent person whereas that ex-tenant, well, words fail me; quite disgusting, it's clear I should win" and that's it. I know it was very stressful for you at the time but well done. And doesn't it feel empowering? I wouldn't want to be the next person that crosses you

In that case the landlord doesn't have a leg to stand on. I'd ignore his letter and forget about it unless/until you receive a claim form from the court. Alternatively you could write back saying that you dispute all his charges and deny any responsibility.

Did you sign a check-in and/or check-out inventory?