Independent Hairdresser: Chair Rental

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In many businesses, particularly those associated with hair and beauty, chair rental agreements are popular. Under such arrangements, the hairdresser or therapist is a self employed sole trader and pays a fee to a salon in order to use their premises and equipment.

This Self Employed Hairdresser's (Chair Rental) Contract (Own and Salon Clients) is designed for use by self-employed hairdressers in order to use the equipment and premises of a salon.

Under the terms of this agreement, the hairdresser makes fee payments to the salon in return for being permitted to use a salon chair and other equipment. This template provides alternative means of charging these fees: payment can be in the form of a standard fee or a percentage of the hairdresser’s takings or a combination of both of these elements.

As well as providing for the hairdresser to serve their own clients, with the client paying the hairdresser direct, this template contract also allows the hairdresser to provide services to the salon’s own clients where the salon refers any of its clients to the hairdresser on any occasion. In this case, instead of paying the hairdresser direct, the client pays money to the salon and the salon then pays a percentage to the hairdresser.

This Self Employed Hairdresser's (Chair Rental) Contract (Own and Salon Clients) is written in such a way that there is a clear distinction between the hairdresser’s clients and the salon’s clients. In addition, the hairdresser is prevented from soliciting the salon’s clients. The template favours the salon in that it does not also include any prohibition on the salon from soliciting the hairdresser’s clients.

This template aims to minimise any risk that the hairdresser might be deemed to be a de-facto employee of the salon rather than a sole trader who is a self-employed contractor. However, whether they are treated as self-employed by HMRC, an employment tribunal, or any other body, will depend not only on what is contained in his contract but also on all other circumstances.

Those circumstances will include the way in which the contract is implemented, and the conduct of the hairdresser, the salon and any person engaged by the hairdresser to do any of the work for the hairdresser, and all related arrangements between them.

HMRC provides some guidance on its website about self-employment. Its decisions as to whether someone is a sole trader who is self-employed are often based on a “balancing exercise” in which it gives weightings to various factors. However, neither the HMRC guidance nor case law are sufficiently precise to enable anyone to predict how in any particular case the “balancing exercise” would be carried out or what HMRC’s conclusion will be about that particular case.

For that reason, we recommend that, whether you are a salon or hairdresser, you take professional employment law, tax, and NIC advice in relation to your particular circumstances before you decide to use or adapt this template.

Nevertheless, a carefully worded agreement ensuring the independence of the hairdresser is a key starting point. As a self-employed individual (rather than as an employee of the salon), the hairdresser has their own clients, is free to engage a suitably qualified person to do some or all of the work in their place, and is free to determine when and how work is carried out.

This document is compliant with Data Protection Legislation.

This form of agreement is suitable to use only where the hairdresser is a self-employed individual but there is also a version of this template, the Hairdresser Chair Rental (Service Company) Agreement (Own and Salon Clients ), where the hairdresser instead operates through the mechanism of a personal service or other intermediary company. Please see the information page accompanying that version for guidance about tax, employment status, IR35, and agency workers, where although the hairdressing work will nevertheless be carried out by the hairdresser him/herself or their assistant, it is the company which enters into the agreement with the salon.

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