Do you have a constructive dismissal claim?
Constructive dismissal is when you resign because your employer has seriously breached your contract, leaving you no real choice but to leave. This checker asks what happened and how you responded, then indicates whether a claim may be worth exploring. It is a guide to the law, not advice on your individual case.
How it works
The checker asks about the conduct that made you consider leaving — for example a serious breach of contract, a fundamental change to your role, unpaid wages, or a breakdown in trust — and about how, and how quickly, you responded to it.
Constructive dismissal turns on three things: a serious breach by the employer, your resigning in response to that breach, and your not waiting too long before leaving. If you stay too long after the event, you can be treated as having accepted it, which is why timing matters so much.
These claims are among the harder employment claims to win, because the burden is on you to show the breach was serious enough to justify resigning. Strong, contemporaneous evidence makes a real difference, and early advice helps you preserve it.
There is a strict time limit: you generally have three months less one day from your resignation to start a tribunal claim, and you must usually begin ACAS early conciliation first. The result is an indication only — if it suggests you may have a claim, take advice quickly.
Questions about Do you have a constructive dismissal claim?
Usually yes — you normally need two years' continuous service to bring an ordinary constructive unfair dismissal claim. There are exceptions where the reason is automatically unfair, such as whistleblowing or discrimination, which do not require any minimum service.
No. It indicates whether a claim may be worth exploring, based on what you enter. Whether a claim succeeds depends on the evidence and the specific facts, which need assessment by an employment solicitor.
You generally have three months less one day from the date your employment ended to start an employment tribunal claim. You must usually begin ACAS early conciliation before that deadline, which can affect the timing, so it is best not to delay.
It can be. The burden is on you to show the employer's conduct was a serious breach that justified your resignation, and that you left in response to it. Clear, contemporaneous evidence — emails, notes, letters — makes these claims considerably stronger.
Yes. Anything you tell us is treated in confidence, and nothing you enter into the checker is stored unless you submit the callback form.
Constructive dismissal is when you resign because your employer has committed a serious breach of your employment contract, leaving you with no real choice but to leave. Because you resigned, you must show the employer's conduct effectively forced you out.
Examples include not paying your wages, demoting you without agreement, a serious failure to address bullying or harassment, fundamentally changing your role or location, or otherwise destroying the trust between you. The breach has to be serious, not minor.
If you carry on working for too long after the breach, you may be treated as having accepted it, which can defeat a constructive dismissal claim. The law expects you to act reasonably promptly once the serious breach has happened.
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