The service charge accounts for my block of flats says various “arrears of service charges” and have I discovered this refers to the legal costs of using solicitors to chase other leaseholders for arrears. Can a freeholder pass the legal costs of pursuing leaseholders who don’t pay their charges promptly on to leaseholders who do? The answer largely depends on the exact wording your lease. There must be a specific term permitting the landlord to add solicitors’ and other legal fees incurred in chasing other leaseholders to your service charges. The lease must be contain a clause in clear and…
Employers often have a problem knowing if they can sack an employee on long-term sick leave. If an employee is off for a long time such as a year, the key issue is whether the employer can be expected to wait any longer, before making a decision to dismiss Relevant factors are the length of the absence, the impact of the absence on the employer’s business, and the cost of the absence to the employer. The employee has to carefully balance these factors and consider them thoroughly. The employee must be consulted and his views taken into account If the…
The division of bonuses received after a couple have separated can be contentious. Differences can arise when assessing income for the purpose of future maintenance payments, and where bonuses have been earned over a lengthy period of separation. The starting point in law is as follows: ‘On exit from the marriage, the partnership ends and in ordinary circumstances a wife has no right or expectation of continuing economic parity (“sharing”) unless and to the extent that consideration of her needs, or compensation… so require.’ There are many conflicting cases, and different judges have to be persuaded to your point of…
Unhappy couples who stuck it out on during the recession have now decided that they can afford to split up. Couples had been waiting for the value of their house to recover or to get back into work. The trend for divorce later in life also continued to grow. This is a result of couples having to spend time with each other in retirement, improving health and life expectancy giving people a new lease of life in their 60s, making new links through Facebook, dating websites and other social media. Divorce is still much more likely to take place much…
Question: My partner has recently been suspended from his job on full pay. We know the reason for his suspension, but his employer has not yet specified to him whether this will be considered to be either Misconduct or Gross Misconduct but it will likely be one of these. We are now worried sick that he is going to lose his job and due to the sacking, find it very difficult to find a new job as a result. What we would like to know is, does everyone who finds themselves in this situation usually lose their jobs? We are…
Question: I recently read a spreadsheet which was in a shared file on the company Intranet. This detailed a new member of staff’s salary, which showed that they were going to be paid significantly more than me, even though I have been with the company for four years! I was so annoyed to find that there was such significant difference in salary, that I went and confronted my boss who said it was none of my business! I was also told I had no right to discuss what I had seen and that I should not have read the file…
Question: My employer has always had a policy with me of paying a whole days pay when doing nights out and having to sleep in the cab when things go wrong. To be clear, these are unplanned nights out, as a posed to planned night shifts. The agreement that my company had with me was that if any of us had to stay out for the night, returning to the depot the following morning. They were entitled to receive full pay for that day; be it half an hour or 8 hours, they still got paid for the whole shift…
Question: I have not been well recently and after a trip to the Doctors, I was signed off on the sick with a Doctor’s sick note for the past couple of weeks. I am now due to go back to work next week after having 3 weeks off in total. I received a letter through the post from my employer stating that I need to attend a disciplinary meeting 3 days before my Doctor’s note runs out. This has me worried now that I’m going to lose my job. Can they sack me for taking time off with a Doctor’s…
Question: I have not been well recently and after a trip to the Doctors, I was signed off on the sick with a Doctor’s sick note for the past couple of weeks. I am now due to go back to work next week after having 3 weeks off in total. I received a letter through the post from my employer stating that I need to attend a disciplinary meeting 3 days before my Doctor’s note runs out. This has me worried now that I’m going to lose my job. Can they sack me for taking time off with a Doctor’s…
Question: I lost my job recently without any verbal or written warnings. I had been working for this company for 8 years and had been loyal to them and worked hard. So this was totally out of the blue and unexpected, to the point even colleagues, friends and family couldn’t believe what had happened as I loved my job. I have been told to take this to an employment tribunal, how much would this cost me and what would the likely outcome of this be? When I was dismissed, I was earning £18’000 a year. Answer: Dismissal without warning has…
