Personal and Confidential

Date:
Name of Employee:

Dear ________________:

This letter confirms our conversation today stating that the Company (“Employer”) has decided not to continue your employment (“Employee”), and, accordingly, your employment will end effective today.

The Company is granting you ___ additional weeks pay for your service and your return of all company property including keys, cars, equipment, and any other company owned items under your possession, custody, or control.

If you have any questions with respect to this Agreement, do not acknowledge this document until these questions have been cleared up to your satisfaction.  If you do not sign this Agreement today, the Company withdraws its offer for one week of additional pay in consideration of your signing this Agreement and your termination stands, as well as your obligation to return all Company property as mentioned in paragraph 2 above.

Yours very truly,

________________________
Authorized Name of Employer

_____________________________
Acknowledgment by Employee

Termination, Regular Employee
Review List

This review list is provided to inform you about this document in question and assist you in its preparation.  This termination letter should be presented to Employee after the Final Release form is signed and one copy given to the Accounting office.  The Final Release is the more important of the two documents and should be handled first.

This second document relates to the terms of separation, including but not limited to keys, corporate property, and the like.  It is our business experience that you should stand firm on the grounds that no signature means no severance.  This is your best chance to get the documents in place prior to a lawyer or government official being brought in.  After gaining these signatures, no company of mine, at least to my knowledge, was ever sued, much less had to pay any additional monies in any settlement.

1.    Severance amount should be fixed prior to the meeting.  Do not waver on the subject or you will wind up unraveling the entire agreement.  Regular employee terminations are much trickier because the Employee generally feels let down and the Employer is generally angry about poor performance.  In other words, the conversation is ripe for conflict and, as a rule, the Employee does not suspect the anger on the part of the Employer since most terminations relate to an Employee who “could” do the work, but wouldn’t, despite conversations in that regard, and tried to “get away with it” and keep employed.

2.    Be sure to get all keys to the property and limit the terminated employee’s access to their office.  Suggest they are better off leaving for personal reasons.  You can box up their goods at a later time.  If you anticipate any problems, get someone to box up the goods while having this meeting.

3.    Remember it is your right to conduct them off the premises for any reason of your choosing as long as you do not disclose it.  Do not discuss the whys and wherefores of termination.  You can terminate people at will, as a rule.  However, you may not terminate them for a host of specific reasons, and that list expands on an ongoing basis.  The less said, the better.

4.    If the terminated employee wants your input about their performance, reference or the like, tell them to take care of today and call you tomorrow about it when they have a chance to reflect upon what they want.  This both gets them off the premises and keeps you out of trouble.  It also makes for a much more measured employee response so you can assist them, to the extent you are able, to help them get another job promptly. This is especially true for a longer-term employee.

5.  For newer employers, let me add that I have never terminated an employee with any medium or long term regrets afterwards.  Most successfully find new employment and many actually learn from their termination.  This is good for them, of course.  But, it is of little consolation to the Employer who has invested in the Employee without a reasonable return.

Personal and Confidential

Date:
Name of Employee:

Dear ________________:

This letter confirms our conversation today stating that the Company (“Employer”) has decided not to continue your employment (“Employee”) during the Probationary Period, and, accordingly, your employment will end effective today.

The Company is granting you one additional week pay for your service during the Probationary period and your return of all company property including keys, cars, equipment, and any other company owned items under your possession, custody, or control.

If you have any questions with respect to this Agreement, do not acknowledge this document until these questions have been cleared up to your satisfaction.  If you do not sign this Agreement today, the Company withdraws its offer for one week of additional pay in consideration of your signing this Agreement and your termination stands, as well as your obligation to return all Company property as mentioned in paragraph 2 above.

Yours very truly,

________________________
Authorized Name of Employer

_____________________________
Acknowledgment by Employee

Termination, During Probation Period
Review List

This review list is provided to inform you about this document in question and assist you in its preparation.  This termination letter should be presented to Employee after the Final Release form is signed and one copy given to the Accounting office.  The Final Release is the more important of the two documents and should be handled first.

This second document relates to the terms of separation, including but not limited to keys, corporate property, and the like.  It is our business experience that you should stand firm on the grounds that no signature means no severance.  This is your best chance to get the documents in place prior to a lawyer or government official being brought in.  After gaining these signatures, no company of mine, at least to my knowledge, was ever sued, much less had to pay any additional monies in any settlement.

1.    Severance amount should be fixed prior to the meeting.  Do not waver on the subject or you will wind up unraveling the entire agreement.

2.    Be sure to get all keys to the property and limit the terminated employee’s access to their office.  Suggest they are better off leaving for personal reasons.  You can box up their goods at a later time.  If you anticipate any problems, get someone to box up the goods while having this meeting.

3.    Remember it is your right to conduct them off the premises for any reason of your choosing as long as you do not disclose it.  Do not discuss the whys and wherefores of termination.  You can terminate people at will, as a rule.  However, you may not terminate them for a host of specific reasons, and that list expands on an ongoing basis.  The less said, the better.

4.    If the terminated employee wants your input about their performance, reference or the like, tell them to take care of today and call you tomorrow about it when they have a chance to reflect upon what they want.  This both gets them off the premises and keeps you out of trouble.  It also makes for a much more measured employee response so you can assist them, to the extent you are able, to help them get another job promptly.

To:                    (Holder of Guarantee)

Dear ____________:

This notifies you formally of our termination of our Guarantee, effective immediately, related to our Guarantee, a copy of which is enclosed, and was given to you by us pursuant to which we guaranteed the ongoing obligations of __________________ (Name).

Please accept this letter as formal notification to you that I am terminating all future obligations under the Guarantee effective as today’s date, under this Guarantee and any other (s) you may be holding relating to this matter.

This termination notice is given to you in accordance with the terms and conditions of the
Guarantee.

Yours very truly,

_______________            Date: _________________
Maker of Guarantee

cc Person or Entity whose obligations were guaranteed.

Exhibit 1:  Copy of Guarantee

Guarantee, Termination
Review List

This review list is provided to inform you about the document in question and assist you in its preparation.  Terminating your guarantee only limits your liabilities from the date received by the party who has your guarantee.  Therefore, you must send it by registered mail, by courier with signature required, or by a recognized overnight delivery service by a firm such as FedEx.

You should only take this action if you believe the party whose debt you are guaranteeing will continue to make payments against the guarantee outstanding and the party holding the guarantee will not just use this to call the debt and therefore put you back in the same place you were before, except matters may be even worse now if you have triggered a default on the matter.

These terminations are usually used by principals in businesses who no longer have those roles and whose guarantees were secondary, or good faith, guarantees of the debts in question.   In these instances, the Termination can be very helpful over the long term to extricate you from these contingent liabilities.  I have made use of this approach effectively in the past when selling a business or transferring management roles to another party.

The key cautionary note is to avoid taking this action if you believe it will trigger a default which, in turn, will weaken the original party and put your guarantee front and center for collection by the holder of your guarantee.  Watch out for this boomerang problem.