Withdrawal of counter-notice contesting redundancy payment

Where an employee is laid off or on short time working, they may try to claim redundancy pay, but you can contest your liability to pay it in certain circumstances. If you do so but then change your mind, use our letter.

Lay-off or short time working

Where you’ve implemented a lay-off or short time working, employees may be entitled to claim a statutory redundancy payment if they’ve been laid off without pay or have worked short time (which, for these purposes, means where they’re on less than half a week’s pay) for four or more consecutive weeks, or for a total of at least six weeks (no more than three being consecutive) in any 13-week period, and they have at least two years’ continuous employment. Statutory guarantee payments don’t count as pay for these purposes.

Redundancy payment claim

To claim a redundancy payment, the employee must comply with the following procedure:

1. They first need to serve a written “notice of intention to claim” within four weeks of the last day of the lay-off or short time working period – this doesn’t need to be in a specific format, but it must state they’re claiming a statutory redundancy payment.
2. You can then either accept their claim or serve a counter-notice within seven days after service of their notice of intention to claim contesting your liability to pay a redundancy payment. To do this, you must reasonably expect to provide at least 13 weeks’ continuous employment for the employee, without further resort to lay-off or short time working, to begin within four weeks of the date of service of their notice of intention to claim – see our Counter-Notice to Notice of Intention to Claim a Redundancy Payment Letter.
3. If you don’t serve a counter-notice, or you serve one and then subsequently withdraw it in writing, the employee must resign giving you their contractual notice or one week’s statutory minimum notice, whichever is greater. They have three weeks to give you their notice of resignation, starting from seven days after they served their notice of intention to claim, or starting from the date you served notice of withdrawal of the counter-notice. Their notice of resignation doesn’t need to be in writing.
4. If you do serve a counter-notice (and don’t withdraw it), the employee must apply for the employment tribunal to decide their claim for a redundancy payment.

Our Withdrawal of Counter-Notice Contesting Redundancy Payment is therefore of use if you’ve served a counter-notice on the employee and now wish to withdraw it under step 3 above. You’d normally need to withdraw it if you no longer reasonably expect to provide at least 13 weeks’ continuous employment for the employee, without further resort to lay-off, within four weeks of the date of service of their notice of intention to claim. Withdrawing your counter-notice means the employee can then resign and pursue their statutory redundancy payment claim with you.