Minimum notice overridden by contract?

N

nacmacfeegle

Guest
Hi All,

From reading the many helpful posts here (and the links contained in them) I can see that the legal minimum notice period for employees with between 2-5 years of service is 2 weeks.

However, my contract contains this section:

Notice
Notice required to be given by either party hereto during the Appointment shall be as follows:

During 6 month probationary period - 2 weeks
After probationary period - 4 weeks

There is no explicit reference to redundancy in the contract so my question is: does the statement above override the legal minimum? My interpretation is that it does however I'd appreciate any other insights.

Many thanks.

nacmacfeegle
 
I was under the impression you could not be contracted out of statuory minimums?
 
correct, but your contract is meeting the minimum and increasing it by a further two weeks.

It must be at least 2 weeks for you but can be more by contractual agreement
 
Hi
A 4-week/1-month notice period is pretty standard in contracts.
It doesn't make much difference though, you can always take all your outstanding annual leave during the period. If you were going to get a new job with a competitor your employer might even offer to pay you in lieu of notice.
 
Annual leave can not necessarily be taken during a notice period. It (a) depends on the contract of employment and (b) is at the discretion of the employer. In fact, I generally include in the contracts of employment that I draft that holidays cannot be taken during a notice period unless the employer agrees. This is consistent with the relevant legislation.

OP, my answer was in response to your very specific question, where the contract you cited gave *more* notice than the legal minimum. In that case, the contract overrides the legal minimum.
 
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