Good morning,
I'm the office manager/bookkeeper for a small business owned by two brothers with 50/50 ownership of the business. The brothers have no signed partnership agreements in place. They operated with a Family trust but since 2012 have registered a Company and there are no agreements between them with regards to time off, etc.
They have verbally agreed to have two weeks paid leave each about a year ago. The one brother's wife has just had a baby and he's taken additional time (on top of his agreed 2 weeks which he's already taken). When we didn't pay him for the time off, he insisted that as a business owner he's entitled to it. Eventually we've paid him in full for his regular wages.
Now he's just had Carpal tunnel surgery on both hands and is unable to do anything. The agreement was that he will see what his income protection insurance will cover and that we will cover the balance. But he never came back to me or his business partner (brother) with any confirmation of his insurance or anything so we never paid him a wage. Then he's taken the company bank card, transferred money from our GST account into the company account and withdrew the money cash.
He's done this without authorisation from his business partner or without informing me as the office manager. He's also expected to take 6 weeks off work for which I now assume he's going to insist on payment as he's the business owner. The problem is our little company can't afford to pay a business owner his full wages without doing any work. He's not phoned in to find out how we are coping or if there is anything he can do to assist us from home or anything at all. He's completely cut us off but he's still insisting on his full wage payment. What are our rights?
His brother and I are having to run the business and carrying all the extra responsibility and stress with getting work for our employees. How do we proceed now?
What I can understand is he's applied for his income protection but those payments will only be coming through in a few weeks time but surely it's insurance fraud if he's taking a drawing from the company and he's already applied for his income protection insurance.
Please some help will be greatly appreciated. We're really in a pickle!
I'm the office manager/bookkeeper for a small business owned by two brothers with 50/50 ownership of the business. The brothers have no signed partnership agreements in place. They operated with a Family trust but since 2012 have registered a Company and there are no agreements between them with regards to time off, etc.
They have verbally agreed to have two weeks paid leave each about a year ago. The one brother's wife has just had a baby and he's taken additional time (on top of his agreed 2 weeks which he's already taken). When we didn't pay him for the time off, he insisted that as a business owner he's entitled to it. Eventually we've paid him in full for his regular wages.
Now he's just had Carpal tunnel surgery on both hands and is unable to do anything. The agreement was that he will see what his income protection insurance will cover and that we will cover the balance. But he never came back to me or his business partner (brother) with any confirmation of his insurance or anything so we never paid him a wage. Then he's taken the company bank card, transferred money from our GST account into the company account and withdrew the money cash.
He's done this without authorisation from his business partner or without informing me as the office manager. He's also expected to take 6 weeks off work for which I now assume he's going to insist on payment as he's the business owner. The problem is our little company can't afford to pay a business owner his full wages without doing any work. He's not phoned in to find out how we are coping or if there is anything he can do to assist us from home or anything at all. He's completely cut us off but he's still insisting on his full wage payment. What are our rights?
His brother and I are having to run the business and carrying all the extra responsibility and stress with getting work for our employees. How do we proceed now?
What I can understand is he's applied for his income protection but those payments will only be coming through in a few weeks time but surely it's insurance fraud if he's taking a drawing from the company and he's already applied for his income protection insurance.
Please some help will be greatly appreciated. We're really in a pickle!