Hi, Judges wouldn't normally refer to something of their own volition if both parties are represented - it is the lawyer's job to bring relevant authority to the attention of the judge. Always remember that the Insolvency Act is the most important and case law is extremely important as well. Practitioner textbooks are persuasive authority only. I don't go to court a lot so I'm not totally sure what you mean by the Brown books. Its possible you mean Halsbury's laws. This is the "general" practitioner text, there are over 100 volumes covering different aspects. They are in brown and there must be a couple of volumes on insolvency. The standard practitioner texts for insolvency are Tolley's Insolvency and Sealy & Milman's Annotated Guide to Insolvency Legislation. The leading publisher is Sweet & Maxwell at http://www.sweetandmaxwell.co.uk/products/law-books.aspx, but as you can see they don't come cheap and get out of date very quickly - they release regular "updates" normally on a quarterly basis to supplement the current books without printing a whole new edition.

I always find it fascinating as to how people interpret taking notes. To me as a solicitor its completely normal to take notes at a meeting. I would always take full notes at any sort of meeting and would bring a trainee along to take notes at an important meeting, and most colleagues think the same way. I would never advise an employer to go into a grievance, investigative or disciplinary meeting - anything of significance - without taking a proper note. However I can completely understand how it might be perceived as intimidating to someone who is not used to that kind of environment. Its very normal for employers to take notes of a grievance meeting. Its very important for the employer to be able to establish what went on at the meeting if things did go wrong and end up at an Employment Tribunal. If anything is agreed at the meeting, people need to be able to refer to their notes for the detail. I wouldn't read too much into it.

Hi there, The standard for constructive dismissal is quite high - you need to show that you forced to leave, otherwise it would be a resignation would rather than a dismissal. Have a look at the constructive dismissal page on www.direct.gov.uk. I think it might be a bit premature to go for constructive dismissal at the moment. You are right to be suspicious by the fact that your job has been filled on a permanent basis, and you should keep full notes of what happens in case this ends up at an Employment Tribunal. However, you do not yet know for a fact that you will be terminated. I do not think you can be 100% sure that the other manager was recruited to work in your former role on a permanent basis: I would have thought this would be confidential between that manager and your employer. Even if you were able to prove that the manager was recruited permanently in front of an Employment Tribunal, there is still a possibility that your employer will give you your job back. For example they could change their mind and ask the new manager to do something else or they could give you a similar position in another branch. It might reach the constructive dismissal stage, but I don't think you are there yet. It is worth giving your employer a good faith chance to sort it out. However you should keep notes about everything that happens and keep all documents so you have a good record if things do go wrong.

For your reference, the law is very clear that payslips must include separate details of any deductions. Employers are not allowed to simply include deductions when calculating the gross figure. However, depending on how your contract is set up it might not be a deduction at all if it is treated as reducing the amount of stops bonus you get, rather than as a deduction from your salary. The first stage is just to check how they arrived at your figures. Its possible that you or HR miscalculated. The following is section 8 Employment Rights Act 1996 - 8 Itemised pay statement. (1)An employee has the right to be given by his employer, at or before the time at which any payment of wages or salary is made to him, a written itemised pay statement. (2)The statement shall contain particulars of; (a)the gross amount of the wages or salary, (b)the amounts of any variable, and (subject to section 9) any fixed, deductions from that gross amount and the purposes for which they are made, ©the net amount of wages or salary payable, and (d)where different parts of the net amount are paid in different ways, the amount and method of payment of each part-payment.

Hi, I'm assuming you were not married. That would completely change the analysis. When you pay towards a house, the law normally assumes that you become co-owner of the house in proportion to your payments. Only the deposit and mortgage repayments are counted, not contributions to household bills. However, there is some "wishy-washyness" here as the property can be divided in another way if a court thinks that is what you intended at the time. If your ex can convince a court that you intended the payments to be a gift, then you wouldn't be entitled to a share of the property - but it sounds unlikely that she could show this, but there may be some scope for her to make an argument like that if you are not registered as owning the property on the land registry. However, just because you own a share of the property doesn't mean your ex-partner has to pay you off if she doesn't want to. You would normally only get your money back when the house is sold. You could apply for a court order that the house should be sold, but this can be expensive and there is no guarantee of success. If your ex sold the house and kept all the money without giving you your share, then she would be liable to pay you.

Hi, Please could you explain why it would be difficult for you to work from home? What kind of work would you be doing, and why would your injury make this difficult

Personally I would send him a cheque, minus the cost of postage with "Final offer of full and final settlement" written on the back. Its entirely the shopkeeper's fault so he should pay the postage, and cashing the cheque would be an acceptance of your offer. Completely ignore anything about requiring a guaranteed cheque or requiring you to go to the shop in person, that's completely unreasonable.

Hi, There are basically 3 types of pregnancy payment. The first is statutory maternity pay, which is paid by your employer. The second is maternity allowance, which is paid by the allowance if you don't qualify for SMP. The third is Employment Support Allowance, which is paid if you don't qualify for maternity allowance. The direct.gov website has lots of information on this (e.g. http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/MoneyTaxAndBenefits/BenefitsTaxCreditsAndOtherSupport/Expectingorbringingupchildren/DG_10018869) you should have a look at. I think the important thing is to make sure you will be eligible for materniy allowance, as ESA is paid at a much lower rate. I'm not an expert but I understand you have to be employed for 26 weeks of your pregnancy. If its less than 15 weeks before your baby is due, then you could look at claiming SMP from your employer. You may well get more from SMP than maternity allowance, but if your employer refused to pay you may need to sue them. If your employer is terminating your job because she is closing the salon, I would have thought you would be entitled to a redundancy payment as you have met the 2year qualifying requirement. If your employer cannot pay because of insolvency, these payments might be guaranteed by the Redundancy Payments Office. Might be worth speaking to the CAB about this.

Unfortunately I'm not sure you are in a strong position. You signed up to the T&Cs as a business, and the T&Cs say the contract automatically renews. You say you may claim for fraud or misrepresentation, but unless you can prove that you were specifically assured that the contract would only be in force for 2years (very difficult/impossible), that's a non-starter. Unfortunately you would need to cancel by recorded delivery. Email is normally good enough, but if the contract says you have to use recorded delivery then you have to use recorded delivery. To avoid being on the hook in future under this contract you should cancel by recorded delivery, it costs something like £1. The only thing I can say is it sounds like the company breached the contract. If the company contracted to distribute brochures by a certain time and to print a certain number of appointment cards, and it did not do so, then that is a simple breach of contract for which you could counterclaim damages to off-set the debt. You are entitled to terminate a contract if there is a serious breach of the contract, personally I would send the company a notice by recorded delivery listing their breaches of contract (n.b. breach of contract means the company not doing what it should - this point does not have anything to do with the automatic renewal point) and stating that you terminating the contract for breach. There should be precedents available online. Whether you could prove breach of contract in front of a judge is another matter, and given that the most important part of the contract was the brochures I'm not sure if these points would off-set all of the debt (but should certainly off-set some of it if you could prove that the company was obliged to do these things and did not do them).

I think the Op said "The response was very short and issued by email. The offer was sent by post (but copied by e-mail).". I understand this as meaning the offer was sent by post/email but the acceptance was sent by email only.

There are two reasons you could say its not a valid acceptance. First, the secretary did not have any authority to accept. Second, the Civil Procedure Rules requires that acceptance of a Part 36 offer is formally served. Have a look at paragarph 4.1 of the Practice Direction for Part 6 of the CPR - http://www.justice.gov.uk/guidance/courts-and-tribunals/courts/procedure-rules/civil/contents/practice_directions/pd_part06a.htm. This says that service by email is only valid if the other side have told you that they are willing to accept service by email and provided the appropriate email address. If the other side haven't done this, it wouldn't be valid service. You should probably let the other side know ASAP that there was no acceptance. If you don't you might not be allowed to claim that it wasn't an acceptance later. I would have thought it is unlikely to be enforced if you promptly disclaim it an if the acceptance obviously came from someone without authority.

Clearly, its irrational to ask someone to pay back money when there is only a 50% chance its their fault. You say it was the deputy - why don't you ask for main manager for a quick chat and explain your concerns? I would have thought that a competent manager would not let an issue like this get out of hand, particularly over a miniscule sum like £8.

Indeed, although I wonder if there is a question as to whether not paying someone on three separate occasions would constitute an ongoing series of deductions. Do you think there is scope for the employer to argue that the deductions are separate or point towards different reasons for each non-payment?

If you have worked for between a week and a year (no matter whether probationary or not), you will be entitled to a weeks' notice. Unfortunately no unfair dismissal rights unless you've been there a year.

If the employer's documents aren't in order, you may be entitled to two or four weeks' pay for the employer's failure to provide a written statement of particulars within a short time of starting work (see s1 Employment Rights Act 1996 and s38 Employment Act 2002). The Tribunal would decide whether 2 or 4 weeks' pay is appropriate. You would only get the money if you won on a separate claim, you can only win on a written particulars claim if you win on something else as well. The statement of written particulars is quite limited though, it can be short and doesn't have to be a full handbook.