As you would expect, I am pretty good at reading the small print in contracts but even I make mistakes, and in 2022 I made a whopper.  

I signed a contract with Citation HR, [not to be confused with any other company of the same name] who I felt offered a good HR service for a reasonable amount of money. And at first, I did feel I was getting value. They helped me through a sticky HR issue – organised a handbook and gave me access to their portal. This was all in the first year. Year 2 and 3 I felt the service had dropped off considerably. I felt I received no help, support, or anything. They would argue that they fulfilled their responsibilities.

So, looking to consolidate my costs I thought I would cancel the contract. But I was shocked to find out that their policy is to charge 75% of the remaining contract cost just to cancel! 

This equated to £8,532.57! I felt incredulous that they want over £8,000 for future services they haven’t completed, just to cancel.  

My first two thoughts were: 

  1. Surely this isn’t correct – (they confirmed it was)
  2. How is this a fair contract term – (for which I am taking legal advice) 

Here is the term in black and white: 

(d) if you and we agree to terminate the Contract (excluding for clarity any termination under condition 9(a) then we will send you an invoice for 75% of the fees which have not been invoiced in respect of the remainder of the Contract Period at the date that the Contract terminates. The final invoice will include a figure for any free services provided for a period during the Contract (calculated at their monthly rate). 

In my defence, this was extremely small print in two pages of terms and conditions, so it presented more like this: 

Why this is important. 

This got me thinking that, as business people, we don’t often think about leaving a contract when start, we are just keen to get started. But I will now, before committing myself, 100% ask the company how I cancel if the need arises and if there are any fees to pay. If Citation had volunteered this information I would 100% have not signed up. 

One of my clients advised me years ago to immediately cancel all new contracts with a future dated letter, so that you are not caught by renewals.  

My advice is read the small print (however small) and if you can’t manage that or make head nor tail of it ask the question – how do I cancel and what will it cost me?