Can HR sign contracts, leavers letters, termination letters etc.

Hi Zerina

There is no legal reason why the company cannot designate you as an authorised representative. It is standard practice in my experience to have some form of internal document that sets out the levels of authority of various people or grades including who can make binding agreements such as job offers or supplier contracts. I have worked in organisations where all job offers etc were made by HR and I have also worked for companies where job offers came from the line manager, although HR drafted the documents. In my current role, offer letters and anything to do with salaries or other terms and conditions are signed by the line manager and countersigned by me, which is my preferred option.

Your General Counsel sounds like a bit of a control freak. If the current position is genuinely that you can't sign anything, I'd work on building trust and credibility and then present a plan for you to be given sign-off authority for specific types of expenditure commitment, e.g. a sensible amount for recruitment, training and OH expenditure (if these are your budgets), no job offers to be issued without passing by you - you will find out what you need for this particular role.

Another tack to take: are you in a stand-alone role? If so, can you have a look through the HR files to see what your predecessor signed?

Fully agree with Elizabeth.
In one of my jobs, the GM was a control freak to the degree that it presented problems (large international group) . He insisted on 4 levels of signture for every document he signed. In practice this meant no-one, including himself, checked anything, because there were so many people who were supposed to be checking it that no-one really botherd to do it
Under instructions from head office we inserted into his signature book a resignation letter, which he duly signed..... His boss then called him to say he was upset about him leaving the company and would he come and discuss it please. The letter was, of course, torn up but the point was made.
Unbelievable as it may seem, this is a true story

Thank you for sharing Ray and for making me laugh :-)

Sometimes if we don't laugh, we cry !

Sometimes if we don't laugh, we cry !