September 12th, 2018.


Understanding the laws surrounding contracts is vital for contractors. Many agencies and clients adopt the ‘one size fits all’ approach to contracts and will offer you the same default contract that they offer all of their other contractors. These can vary across all agencies and clients in terms of quality and dangers to look out for, so seek professional advice.

What is a contract?
A contract is a legally-binding engagement between your limited company and the agency or the end-user client if contracting direct.

Under UK law, there are three essential elements to all contracts, and these normally form part of a written contract:

- Agreement: An agreement between the parties to the contract – usually the contractor and agency, or the contractor and client

- Charge/fee: A consideration – a legal term which means a confirmation of what the agency or client will pay the contractor

- Intent: An intention to form legal relations by all parties, whereby it is clear from correspondence that the contractor and the agency or client were planning to agree on a contract.

If one of these key elements of contract law is missing, and the dispute ended in court, a judge would rule that there was no contract between a contractor and the client or agency.


For the full story at smallbusiness.co.uk CLICK HERE