Notice Period during Probation Time - Confusion

Question

I am still on my probation and would like to quit, but I don't understand if my notice period is 1 week as per Clause 10.2 or 4 weeks Clause 10.3. I want to leave asap so I want to give 1 week of notice, but don't understand if they will accept it.

Here is the contract:

10. Termination and Notice Period

10.2 [Subject always to Company’s right to terminate this Agreement without notice at any time in accordance with clauses 10.1 and/or 10.5, the period of notice required from you or the company to terminate your employment during or at the end of the Probationary Period will be one week.

10.3 Subject always to company’s right to terminate this Agreement without notice at any time in accordance with clauses 10.1 and/or 10.4, the period of notice required from you or company to terminate your employment during or at the end of the Probationary Period will be 4 weeks.

10.4 Subject always to company’s right to terminate this Agreement without notice at any time in accordance with clauses 10.1 and/or 10.5, after the successful completion of the Probationary Period, company may terminate your employment by giving you the following prior written notice:

10.4.1 in the first five years of continuous employment: 3 calendar month's notice;

10.4.2 once you have completed five years’ continuous employment: one week’s notice for each completed year of continuous employment up to a maximum of twelve weeks notice for twelve full years continuous employment or more.

10.5 After the successful completion of the Probationary Period, you are required to give company three months’ prior written notice to terminate your employment.

10.6 Notwithstanding clauses 10.2 and 10.3, company may in its sole and absolute discretion terminate your employment at any time and with immediate effect by notifying you that company is exercising its right under this clause 10.5 and that it will make a payment in lieu of notice (“Payment in Lieu”).

Answer 1

I suspect clauses 10.2 and 10.3 are in conflict.

In addition, looking at the referenced clauses 10.4 and 10.5, it's evident that this is a poorly structured contract. Example, 10.4.1 says you must give 3 months notice, until the 5th year, in which you must give a week for every year worked. So, after 5 years, the required notice goes from 3 months to 5 weeks. This is almost certainly not intentional.

It's obvious to me that these clauses are an absolute mess, and no lawyer would be prepared to go to court to try to defend them.

There is a legal doctrine in the UK called contra proferentem, which specifies that parties that propose contracts are the ones that are to suffer their ambiguity.

Note that your employer cannot decline your letter of notice. If you've acted contra to your employment contract, they could potentially take you to court, but at the end of the day they cannot make you attend work.

Personally, I would feel comfortable enough giving one week's notice.

Answer 2

If you want to leave immediately no matter what (even having no new gig offered) and you are not sure which clause will apply to you just talk to HR (or even your manager if they are familiar with the terms in your contract) and ask them what clause will be applicable when resigning.

Then hand in your notice immediately and serve your notice-period the best you can - easy as that..

As @Gregory mentioned it's always wise to have a new job (a signed offer) lined up before handing in your notice.

Answer 3

If that's a direct copy-and-paste, your employer has screwed up because 10.2 and 10.3 are inconsistent. It's pretty obvious 10.3 should say "after the Probationary Period" rather than "during or at the end of the Probationary Period".

Given that, there is no simple answer to this question. In reality, the chance of your employer actually doing anything if you say "I'm resigning, my last day is a week from now in accordance with Clause 10.2 of my contract" is so close to zero I wouldn't worry about it - they would have to try and sue you for breach of a badly written contract, and as noted in Gregory Currie's answer, UK courts will always tend to favour the party that did not draft the contract.