A judge has ruled that a business that acted on behalf of a landlord to evict a tenant “crossed the line” in carrying out regulated legal services that only qualified solicitors are permitted to provide. Here’s a link to the full story which appeared on Litigation Future’s website: 

https://www.legalfutures.co.uk/latest-news/unregulated-eviction-service-crossed-line-into-litigation

It’s easy to see how landlords are tempted to use services such as “Remove a tenant” as an alternative to representing themselves, or paying for solicitor representation in legal proceedings. Not only did “Remove a tenant” break the law, the legal notice that they issued to repossess the property was faulty. The landlord had to go back to court to proceed with their claim using alternative grounds to repossess their property.

Legal expenses insurance for landlords provides a helpline to talk through correctly issuing a landlord’s notice to repossess and ARAG’s Landlord Legal Solutions policy allows your landlord clients to download the notices and a covering letter for free from our legal services website. If a tenant fails to leave on expiry of the notice, the policy pays legal costs for a regulated law firm to act for the insured.

According from their website “Remove a tenant” charge from £50 to issue a repossession notice, and the cost of preparing for a court hearing and representation is charged from £250 (+VAT) http://www.removeatenant.co.uk/legal-services/ - this is much more than the cost of Landlord’s Legal Solutions over the average term of a tenancy. Surely peace of mind and confidence that claims will be dealt with properly is surely an attractive prospect for customers who may be reluctant to opt in to legal expenses? I’ll leave you to guess the moral of this story...

Care Providers & the National Minimum Wage

This blog is aimed at Care Provider Legal Solutions Policyholders and agents who specialise in the care sector. I would like to share with you a Government briefing document that summarises recent developments relating to payment of the national minimum wage for sleep-in care duties. Here is a link to the document and my summary is below. 

Back ground

The Royal Mencap Society v Tomlinson-Blake case considered whether sleeping during a shift should be deemed as “work” for the purpose of applying National Minimum Wage (NMW) regulations.

In April 2017 the Employment Appeal Tribunal handed down judgment which, held that, in some cases, carers who are required to be present throughout the night will be entitled to the NMW whether awake or asleep. The briefing document summarises this case and others. 

Consequences of breaching NMW

To obtain backdated wages if underpaid, an employee can take a claim to the employment tribunal or the country court. If a worker is successful in his NMW claim, he could be owed up to six years’ back pay. HMRC enforces the NMW on behalf of the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS). If HMRC finds that an employer has underpaid worker(s), it will fine the employer, require it to provide back pay to affected workers, and name and shame them via a press release.

Relief for social care employers

Given the potential impact on the social care sector the HMRC has, until 31 March 2019, modified its approach to enforcement by launching the Social Care Compliance Scheme (SCCS). Subject to certain criteria, employers who have opted into the scheme can have financial penalties in relation to under payment of sleep-in shifts prior to 26 July 2017 waived and will escape “public naming and shaming”.  Details of the SCCS scheme are here. https://www.gov.uk/guidance/tell-hmrc-if-youve-underpaid-national-minimum-wage-in-the-social-care-sector
Nothing in the scheme prevents individual workers taking their own legal action (whether in the Employment Tribunal or Court) to recover arrears owing to them.

Staying compliant

No single factor is determinative and the weight each factor carries (if any) will vary according to the facts of the particular case however a key point is that “where specific hours at a particular place are required, upon the pain of discipline if they are not spent at that place, and the worker is at the disposal of the employer during that period, it will normally constitute time work”.
The briefing note sets out potentially relevant factors in determining whether a person is working by being present. Full enforcement guidance is here.   https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/656568/nmw-enforcement-beis_-_policy_doc_-_full_vFINAL__3_.pdf