contract clause - livery yard question

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Marmi452

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We have just been given a contract after being on the livery yard for over 18 months, the contract on the whole is fair to all but there is a clause re notice, the yard owner has requested 2 weeks notice from us but states they can ask us to leave with no notice. Now I pay a month up front in cash and get a receipt to say I have paid, would it be fair to ask him to give me a months notice if it ever came to me leaving since we have an arrangement with my up front payments. Any advice would be great as we have a yard meeting this week and this will come up. X
 
sounds a bit harsh that YO doesnt have to give anynotice......i paid my livery every 4 weeks in advance at my old yard and we had to give 4 weeks notice and so did YO....i think that is fair, its difficult enough to find another yard but with no notice it would be almost impossible,,,
 
It needs to to be the same for both sides. If the notice period is shorter than the amount of time you might have paid for, I'd want to see a clause making it clear that any overpayment was returned within x time.
 
Marmi452 said:
We have just been given a contract after being on the livery yard for over 18 months, the contract on the whole is fair to all but there is a clause re notice, the yard owner has requested 2 weeks notice from us but states they can ask us to leave with no notice. Now I pay a month up front in cash and get a receipt to say I have paid, would it be fair to ask him to give me a months notice if it ever came to me leaving since we have an arrangement with my up front payments. Any advice would be great as we have a yard meeting this week and this will come up. X
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Sounds fair - we have a clause which says we reserved the right to end this agreement . Our rules but this is only when extreme case crops up and only once thins happened and horse was not safe to be around.
 
OP, v harsh on one side.
My old contracts stated a calendar months notice either side.

Only 1 livery have I ever told to do one immediately, to be out of yard same day. This was for being caught red handed thieving early 1 morning, this had been going on since just after she arrived a month prior - but i couldn't pin it on her. Despite her protestations about contract, she was gone within 3 hours. I call that an exceptional circumstance though.
 
Technically a standard contract can come to an end in two ways - by the giving of notice equal to the periodicity of payment or by the repudiation of the contract by one party and the acceptance of that breach by the other. The latter can carry a notice period but does not have to. (Some contracts are different - employment contracts particularly but also others governed by supervening law - tenancy agreements for example.)

Ideally the notice period should reflect the payment period - so 1 month in OP's case. But there is always the right - for both sides - to bring the contract to an end immediately for breach of one or more of the fundamental express or implied terms.

The issue then becomes how you could enforce that contract. Would you honestly sue for specific performance if less than the contract notice period was given? If the situation is that bad would not not leave as soon as you could? And having done so would you actually go to small claims to recover any money paid in advance? I know small claims is cheap and ready to do - but would you actually go that far? If you did and won would you then pay to enforce that debt (presuming a relationship between the two parties is now completely destroyed and the erring party won't pay - they usually don't.) The horseworld is often a small place and would the reputation that could follow you for standing on your rights be a good or bad one?

People get very hung up on contracts. They are very useful and I would always recommend using them. They set clear expectations for both sides and avoid a lot of miscommunication. But you need to look at how you would enforce it if you wanted to almost more closely than at what it actually says. If you would not enforce it - why do the exact terms matter? Within reason of course!
 
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