<prompt> Human: Hi all. First of all let me start by saying I am from England so some advice from my overseas cousins may not apply! I am being made redundant from my job of 12 years. I have had this job since I left school and therefore my knowledge around certain procedures of leaving work or being forced out is pretty much non-existent. This coming week I have a meeting with my HR team to discuss terms of my redundancy. I am too far down the line now to fight the procedure and I am not part of a union or anything so I feel pretty alone going in to this. I feel like they may be able to feed me anything they want and I will end up walking away with a raw deal due to my inexperience at this. This is where I am looking for this subs advice, perhaps to help me get a better deal and buy myself some time to sort myself out going forward. I have a mortgage and children so dont really want to mess this up!I have read up a little bit and believe I am entitled to the following:Statutory Redundancy payA notice period or pay in lieu ofPaid for any untaken holidaysIs there anything else I should be looking in to? Am I legally obliged to sign anything away.. I have heard about payments called ex-gratia and hush money... what are those and are they worth pursuing!?Thanks in advance for any help you can provide.  <response>: The legal requirement in the UK is statutory redundancy pay if you have been working for an employer for more than 2 years which is:- half a weeks pay for each year you worked there when you were under age 22.- one weeks pay for each year you worked there when you were 22-40.- one and a half weeks pay for each year you worked there when you were 41 or older.There is a maximum of 15,240 pounds.Statutory redundancy pay is tax free.There is also a statutory notice period. That is one weeks notice for each year employed if employed between 2 and 12 years.So you should get 12 weeks notice, which they can either ask you to keep working, or send you home, but they will have to pay you for those weeks. That pay will be taxed.Any wages or holiday pay owed when you leave will be taxed.So, you should get around 24 weeks pay. More than that really, as the statutory redundancy part will not be taxed. If you find your next job quickly, you can have a nice lump sum to save or invest. If it is hard to find the next job, you should be able to live for 6 months more if you tighten up the budget before things begin to get difficult.Some companies have internal policies which mean that they pay more than the statutory redundancy pay. If they do, all redundancy pay from both statutory and extra is tax free up to 30,000 pounds.Some companies have arrangements for re-training or help finding new jobs.I dont think they can make you sign anything to get the statutory redundancy pay, but if they are offering more than that, they may want you to sign a confidentiality agreement or something like that.Go to your local Jobcentre tell them you are being made redundant, and ask for their rapid response service. You should get priority from them in helping find the next job.Good luck. 