Repaying training costs

[MelissaD10]

My husband started a new job last year. It had a clause in the employment contract that if he left within 30 weeks that he may have to pay for the training he had initially up to £7000.

he left at 26 weeks (I wasn’t aware of all this as I personally hadn’t read the contract) and they said he would have to repay and they would work out what was owed taking into consideration service etc. and get back to us the next day. This was now 9 weeks ago, any idea how long after legally they can pursue the money?

Personally, I’d not pursue this with them any further then if they send an invoice I’d let them take you to court to prove the reasonableness of the debt. Sounds like they are not on totally firm ground because a) he was self employed and b) can they prove he had £7000 worth of training? I doubt it!

The fact he was self-employed is irrelevant. He signed a contract. The terms of that contract will apply unless he can persuade the court that they are unfair. It is not obvious that this term is unfair. A business training a self-employed contractor will want some return on their investment. They don't want the contractor to leave as soon as they've finished training. A claw back clause may well be held to be a reasonable way of achieving this.

The better line of attack is whether the training was worth £7k if that is what they try to charge.

I’d be wary of this advice op and speak to a lawyer, as a court will simply enforce the contract he willingly entered. refusal to pay is breach. Im sure they can easily prove the cost of the training.

As such, if they need to take you to court, they will win, and you will also pay their costs if they do.

I did occasional work for a company at one time that had this in their contract for freelancers. In practice, it was a^ we have the right to^ phrase and was not actually enforced to my knowledge. It was to avoid contractors messing them about by training and then never actually doing any shifts.
^
Can't guarantee it, but just because they have the right to claw back money, doesn't mean they will.^

But they have said they will. I’d assume they aren’t saying it to prank him.

given the op and her husband were taken by the surprise by the training cost contractual condition, I would hazard a guess that quite a bit of the detail the OP has provided following the initial post is…. probably pretty inaccurate

I was taken by surprise because I didn’t read the contract as previously posted.
And no thank you the detail is accurate thank you very much, why would I lie? 😂