Is my company trying to rip me off?

[notveryfairatall]

I received a letter stating that 'with effect from 1st July' I would be entitled to a bonus 'which will be paid in the July payroll'. It then states 'please note that you will not be entitled to the bonus if you resign before then'. I resigned shortly after the 1st of July, but assumed that I would still get the bonus as it was 'effective from the 1st'. Just received my pay minus the bonus and they are saying I am not entitled to it. What do you think?

Watching with interest - I resigned two weeks ago and will finish at the end of August. Pay will be mid August and contain a bonus, was announced today. I suspect they may try and get out of paying mine, and I am gearing up for a fight...

I suppose to my (not legally trained) eye, the question would be whether the 'you will not be entitled if you resign before then' - what does 'then' mean - 1 July or date of payment of July payroll? I would imagine it's the former but if it's clumsily worded they may claim they meant the latter...

Your letter states the bonus is effective from the 1st. Date of payment of that is largely irrelevant. The date you can't resign from must refer to the effective date of the bonus.
I think they owe you the money.

In my experience, you lose any bonus once you've handed in your notice. This is pretty commonplace. People in my company only resign once the money's in the bank.

Check the wording of your contract.

Did you post about this earlier in the week?

If it says that the bonus is in affect from the 1st July, and will be paid in the July payroll, but you will not be entitled to the bonus if you resign before then - then you are not entitled if you resigned before the July payroll, as the "then" applies to the last mentioned date.

Also, it would be obvious that you wouldn't be entitled to a bonus if you resigned before the 1st July, because the bonus wasn't in force then.

If it's written as you describe, I wouldn't think you'd be entitled to the bonus.

It says you won't be entitled to it if you resign before "then". So the event/date mentioned just before that in the text will be the "then" they are referring to, and I think the intention of the clause is probably to ensure those working notice aren't entitled to bonuses, which is fairly usual.

It's not brilliantly clearly worded I agree.