Location, location, location

Anyone in property development knows that the location of your property can be just as important as the property itself. A rough house in a nice area can be redeveloped into a nice house in a nice area. But if you’ve got a nice house in a rough area, improving the area can be considerably harder and far more expensive, if it’s even possible.

But it’s not just about properties. The importance of location can arise in lots of other situations.

The location of your striker to the ball.

The location of me to the bar.

Or the location of your staff if they’re going to bring tribunal proceedings.

It probably won’t surprise you to learn that where your staff are, and for how long, will determine what Tribunal they can bring a claim in. If they are going to bring a claim, that’s bad enough, but what you don’t want is for the costs to be even higher whilst we argue about where we should be.

To illustrate how uncertain the answer can be, in a recent case an employee was found to be able to bring a claim in the English Employment Tribunal, even though they had only worked in the UK for one day in the previous few years. The reason for this was that the employee couldn’t bring a claim in any other country, because they had been in the UK throughout that period.

As employees are increasingly able to work remotely, and often from other jurisdictions, it pays to at least consider which jurisdiction they might come under, if only to make sure that anything you do with regard to that employee is compliant with the relevant jurisdiction’s law. It’s bad enough having to go through court proceedings, but even more frustrating if you lose those proceedings simply because you were complying with the wrong country’s legal requirements.

If you need help, my location is always well known.

Kleyman & Co Solicitors. The full-service law firm. Geographically convenient.