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5 Contract superseding offer letter terms

Laura | 0 Posts

17 Dec, 2022 09:37

Does anyone have any experience of an offer letter noting that "The Terms and Conditions of Employment will supersede the Outline Terms in this Offer Letter"? I've recently received an offer letter that has this clause, and I'm not too keen on agreeing as it feels as though I'm expected to agree to the stated terms, leave my current position, etc. and potentially find out that the terms have radically changed by the time a contract is issued...

For context, this company is currently outsourcing their HR, and there are other issues with the offer that I will request to be changed before I can consider the offer (particularly, stating that my T&Cs of employment will be issued within three months of employment). I don't think the company itself is intending any malice and they're simply using a template provided to them, but I'm not willing to take that risk.

If anyone has any experience of the above clause, and how much it can really override from the initially agreed terms through an offer letter, I'd be grateful for any and all input!

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Peter Stanway | 0 Posts

19 Dec, 2022 08:30

No experience of this whatsoever. It sort of makes sense but I would recommend that you only resign/accept when you have the full 'contract'
personally I would only accept a job once I had seen the contract and the Handbook.
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Robey | 0 Posts

19 Dec, 2022 09:07

No, I've not seen this before. But it sounds like something a business would insert after someone made a mess up in the offer letter and ended up being held to account in court for that wording later on. It would be very odd to see a radical change in the offer between the offer letter and the statement of particulars, but this kind of clause is supposed to clarify that, in the event of a discrepancy, the contract trumps the letter.

All the same, I would agree with Peter that it would make sense, given the wording, to refuse to accept any offer until you can see the actual offer and, in this case, the offer is the contract not the letter.
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Ian | 0 Posts

19 Dec, 2022 12:06

Can you say something like
"I verbally accept this offer subject to these changes/clarifications x,y & z and subject to any substantial changes in the actual contract. I am afraid I can not give you an expected start date until I have handed in my notice which I can not do until I have seen and agreed a final contract. I hope we can get this sorted ASAP as I see some great opportunities with your organisation going forward"
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Ian | 0 Posts

19 Dec, 2022 12:06

Can you say something like
"I verbally/provisionally accept this offer subject to these changes/clarifications x,y & z and subject to any substantial changes in the actual contract. I am afraid I can not give you an expected start date until I have handed in my notice which I can not do until I have seen and agreed a final contract. I hope we can get this sorted ASAP as I see some great opportunities with your organisation going forward"
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Nina Waters | 0 Posts

19 Dec, 2022 12:16

It's really odd, but I guess it's logical. If you accept the offer, the contract is formed now. Ideally they'd send you the full contract at this point too, so there's no room for misunderstanding - if not, when they do and you sign that contract, you would be accepting more detailed terms and (if at odds with the initial offer) would be considered agreed by you signing that contract. So, logical that a later agreement would trump an earlier agreement - but the need to spell that out is concerning.

Definitely shows that they need you in post and getting this sorted for them, rather than outsourcing to an HR service that isn't meeting their legal requirements!
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