5:27 pm, March 31, 2020
The legal experts from Lawgistics were back today (Mar 31) for Car Dealer Live with top advice for car dealers and garage owners who had pressing questions on a variety of topics.
Chatting to Car Dealer Magazine editor James Baggott, they covered subjects that included:
- Furloughing staff – the ins and outs in even more detail, including commission payments
- The minefield that is distance-selling
- Freelancers and the self-employed – update on recent announcements
- Property leases
Probably unsurprisingly, furloughing provided a fertile ground for discussion and explanation, and lawyer Nona Bowkis said that the government portal via which companies can claim the grant to pay furloughed employees up to 80 per cent of their salary won’t be ready until the end of April at the earliest.
The point was also made that if directors are on the PAYE system, they can be furloughed, but legal adviser Kiril Moskovchuk emphasised that they mustn’t then engage in any work for the company, except training and volunteering, and any training mustn’t generate any revenue for the company.
Turning to the subject of distance-selling, fellow legal adviser Jason Williams answered doubts about if deliveries could be deemed legal. He said that there shouldn’t be a problem because in the eyes of the law the legal obligation to supply something that had been paid for was being fulfilled.
There was good news, too, for dealers regarding leases and whether they could ask for rent holidays on commercial properties, with Bowkis saying they most definitely could, saying there was a lot of advice and information about it on the gov.uk website. She also made the point that that was where people should always go to, rather than trusting social media.
You can also subscribe to the Car Dealer Magazine YouTube channel and click subscribe and you’ll get a notification when we go live.
To see all our past episodes, click here to visit the Car Dealer Live section.
