thanx A.I / Is your termination clause void?
One week per yearis one week too few.
The most common termination clause in British Columbia pays one week at twelve months. Section 63 of the Employment Standards Act requires two. When a clause pays less than the Act, it is void — and the cap goes with it.
The wording
"One week's notice per completed year of service, to a maximum of eight weeks." It reads like a limit. Do the arithmetic and it fails: at twelve months it pays one week where s.63(2)(a) requires two.
Why it is void, not topped up
Section 4 says the Act's minimums cannot be waived and an agreement to do so has no effect. The clause isn't quietly raised to the minimum — it falls, and a clause that falls below the floor at any single point is void.
What replaces it
Once the clause is void, the eight-week cap disappears with it. Common-law reasonable notice applies instead, which has no ceiling — for a long-service employee that is months, not weeks.
What to do
Don't reissue blind — varying a contract needs fresh consideration. Run the agreement through a free review to see the exact finding and the section behind it, then rebuild it with savings language so it can't go void if the Act moves again.
This is a plain-language explainer, not legal advice. Run your own agreement through a free review to see the exact findings and the sections behind them.
Tell us what you need
Describe the job in your own words. You get a straight answer and a price from the person who builds it — or an honest no if it isn't a fit.