Unpaid Postage….
by Philip
It’s always annoying when you receive a letter from the royal mail saying that a letter, addressed to your firm, is being held captive at the royal mail’s office as an incorrect amount of stamps was applied to the letter. The royal mail will release the letter if you pay the missing postage, together with a £1.00 surcharge.
This is annoying as the royal mail are acting as judge, jury,gaoler, and fine collecter. PJH law takes a magnanimous view and pays the surcharge to release the letter. It is odd, though, that quite often under-stamped letters are letters from parties on the other side, where dialogue has been, ahem, robust.
It was unusual, though, to receive an under-stamped letter from an employment tribunal. One arrived recently and we paid the surcharge to have it released.
It was interesting to read of this case reported here, where an employer sent an ET3 back to Watford employment tribunal by post but did not pay sufficient postage. Watford ET, taking a robust and parsiminous approach to public money, refused to pay the surcharge with the end result that the hapless employer was debarred from defending the claim as the Tribunal had not received it within the time limit.
The EAT restored some justice to the proceedings by granting the employer an extension of time to submit a response.
Moral of the story is don’t use snail mail for time critical documents, use fax or email which leave a discernable delivered footprint.
Have a great weekend.
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