A Settlement Agreement is usually offered to you by your employer as a means of you agreeing to leave your employment and setting out the terms of your departure. Settlement Agreements are often offered by employers to employees if there is a redundancy situation. Employers also sometimes offer a settlement agreement as a means of resolving an employment dispute and will usually offer this under a ‘Protected Conversation’ or on a ‘Without Prejudice’ basis (please refer to our free glossary on our website for an explanation as to what these mean).
Whilst you do not have a legal right as such to ask for a Settlement Agreement, there is nothing to stop you doing so. You may be unhappy in your job, and you just want to leave, or something may have happened at work which means you want to seek a mutual agreement about the terms of your departure and the leaving date.
If you are thinking of approaching your employer with a proposal for a Settlement Agreement, think carefully about what you hope to achieve, what your desired outcomes are and how you can best make the approach and who to. Once you have decided on that, make sure that any approach is marked “Without Prejudice” (our article explains in more detail what this means). You should find out fairly soon whether your employer is amenable to the suggestion and if they are, there will usually be some negotiations as to the precise terms of the Settlement Agreement. Once you have the agreement, usually your employer will offer to pay a fixed fee (this will likely be in the region of £500 – £1,000 + VAT) towards you seeking legal advice from a solicitor of your choosing on the contents of the Settlement Agreement itself.
Another option is to instruct a solicitor to negotiate an exit package for you. The solicitor will then approach the employer on your behalf.
We are specialist settlement agreement solicitors, and all our solicitors have significant experience in negotiating settlement agreement terms and advising employees. Please get in touch with us on info@justemployment.com to see how we can help.
