Mr Davies (Counsel) For the v Respondent — 2023

Mr Marlow worked for Thakeham Homes from 4 March 2013 until his resignation on 17 November 2021, and the central dispute was whether a June 2020 discussion with Mr Stebbings created a binding commission scheme for allocated and draft allocated sites. The tribunal found that the June 2020 conversation was only about hypothetical terms for a future scheme, not an immediately effective contract variation, and that the later letter of 24 September 2021 introduced the 2021 commission structure with a £150 per plot bonus for new sites while expressly excluding Petersfield from that structure.

Mr Marlow submitted a commission claim for Petersfield on 2 November 2021, claiming 56 plots at £175 per plot plus an acreage element, capped at £12,000. The tribunal held that Petersfield therefore fell back to the 2015 commission structure, under which the correct commission was an acreage bonus of £2,585. It accepted that the respondent could identify the proper amount from the claim and that there was no term saying an error in the amount claimed would invalidate the whole claim.

The tribunal found that the respondent's failure to pay £2,585 was a breach of contract but not a fundamental breach. It also found that Mr Marlow resigned because the respondent would not pay the full £12,000 he claimed, rather than because of the unpaid £2,585, so the unfair dismissal claim failed and the wrongful dismissal claim did not arise. The unlawful deduction from wages claim succeeded and the respondent was ordered to pay £2,585 gross. The tribunal rejected an ACAS uplift because it found the 6 October 2021 email was a general complaint about the 2021 commission structure, not a grievance about Petersfield, and it made no section 38 award because the updated 1 July 2018 contract had supplied the missing written terms before proceedings began.