18 Years Reserve Service?

[mixu83]

Here is a tough one for an experienced admin expert.

My wife left the RAF in April as a Cpl after 8 years service (gave 18 months notice on a 22 yr engagement).
She got sent her leavers pack from JPA which states under normal circumstances in her situation she would have a reserve commitment of 6 years. Trouble is her reserve service is 18 years as stated on her discharge paperwork. This is where it gets interesting. She joined in 2000 when most engagements were 9+6 yrs reserve service. On further enquiries it turns out when she enlisted the 6 yr reserve commitment on her attestation paperwork was scored out and written over in pen. It was changed to 18 years. A decent solicitor would probably shoot this to pieces in about 5 mins. However my question is does anyone know why this may have been changed? Is it possible it was trade related. She was a linguist by trade. Her last unit don't want to know as she is now discharged. JPA are as helpful as ever :ugh:. My Chief Clerk reckons nobody can be held to a reserve commitment for more than 6 years.

I would appreciate the pprune experts thoughts. We know the chances of being called up are minimal but even so an 18yr reserve liability seems excessive to us!

[airborne_artist]

Has anyone from her trade been re-called/mobilised from the Reserves recently?

[mixu83]

No, not that we know of airborne_artist.
However, with her being a linguist of middle eastern languages it could be a possibility in the future which is why she does not want to be held to an 18 year reserve liability.

[Satellite_Driver]

Putting my legal hat on* I'd say that this is extremely dubious. To begin with, is there any evidence that the TOS were amended <b>before</b> your wife signed them, not afterwards? If a standard contract has to be amended, it's good practice to get the other party to countersign the change. If that wasn't done, what evidence is there that your wife signed up to it?

Even if the change was made at the time, it might not be valid. Whilst it is normally the legal rule that if you sign a contract you are deemed to have read and agreed to the small print, there is also legal authority to the effect that especially onerous terms must be drawn carefully to the attention of the other party - and I'd say that tripling the length of reserve service was pretty onerous!

I'd write to whatever PMA calls itself these days asking for formal confirmation that your wife's reserve commitment is the normal 6 years. That puts the ball firmly in their court to explain why it should be otherwise.


*LLB (Open University)**

**Which included sitting one exam in a corrimec at BAS!

[Ogre]

Quick question, you said your wife was on a 22 engagement, correct? I know when I left I'd done 17 of my 22 years, and my reserve was automatically the rest of the 22 year engagement. Yes the old tours used to be X years + Y reserve, but when you signed for 22 there was no reserve figure on it. Could it be they've counted the rest of the engagement as reserve?

[GreenKnight121]

No, since 22 years minus the 8 she has already served makes 14.

Besides, re-read the original post, and note where the enlistment papers were altered to read "18 years reserve"... not "22 years minus active = reserve, to be calculated during separation from active duty".