Ms E Neale v Property Aspire Ltd Heard: Remotely (by Cloud Video Platform) – Midlands West — 2022

The claimant alleged unlawful deductions from wages totalling £2,592, said to arise from work carried out between 13 May 2021 and 5 August 2021 under an asserted contract of employment dated 6 May 2021. She said she had been engaged as a Property Lettings Advertising Assistant and was owed pay at £12 per hour for 18 hours per week. The respondent denied that it had ever engaged or employed her and said the claim was based on forged documentation.

Employment Judge Power, sitting alone, found that the respondent had not agreed to find tenants for the properties identified by the claimant and had no reason to engage her to undertake the work alleged. The tribunal accepted the respondent’s evidence that the arrangement described by the claimant would not have been commercially viable, and found that the respondent did not advertise a Property Lettings Advertising Assistant role on Indeed.com. It also found that the claimant had not shown the original format of the emails relied on, that some details were missing, and that those emails could not be relied on as an accurate record.

The tribunal further found that the contract of employment produced by the claimant was not signed by the respondent and that the signature did not match the respondent’s genuine signature on other documents. On the balance of probabilities, the tribunal concluded that the claimant and respondent did not enter into a contract of employment for the claimant to work as a Property Lettings Advertising Assistant, and that the respondent had not sent the emails relied on by the claimant.

Applying section 13 and section 23 of the Employment Rights Act 1996, the tribunal held that because the claimant had not been employed or engaged by the respondent during the relevant period, the protection against unlawful deductions was not engaged. The complaint of unlawful deductions from wages was therefore not upheld, and no monetary award was made.