My wife and I had been living in Rochester, NY until last year (Oct. 2013). My wife was a showroom manager for a clothing retailer that has stores in nearly all major US markets, as well as overseas. Our goal had been to move to Phoenix, AZ to be closer to family. The company my wife works for has several stores in the greater Phoenix area. The company is very supportive of the personal goals of employees and agreed to allow her to transfer to a store in Phoenix. Initially my wife was given the impression that as a manager she would qualify for the corporate relocation assistance program. However, she was soon told that that was not the case since the relocation assistance only applies to "store" management, not "showroom" management (showrooms are established in a new market to test the demand. If the demand is high enough then a store is created). Also, the company could not guarantee that my wife would be able to transfer to a store management role (asst. manager or manager). So we decided we would make the move and pay for it ourselves as soon as we closed on the sale of our house (Sep. 2013). In the meantime Rochester was determined to be a strong enough market to have a full-blown store and was targeting an opening date for November 2013. My wife's regional manager was eager/desperate to have my wife help with the store opening process. At this time a verbal arrangement occurred to where in exchange for my wife and I delaying our move to Phoenix the regional manager said temporary housing would be provided at the company's expense, and some sort of partial relocation assistance would be determined. My wife and I agreed to stay and set a mutually agreed upon end date for mid-Oct. 2013. As our end date came near we still had no word on any details surrounding a partial relocation assistance package. My wife's company finally set us up with a relocation company to organize our move. As it turned out, my wife's company provided a full relocation assistance package that covered our cost of moving. However, no contract was ever presented to us. Thus, no contract was ever signed by us. The corporate policy for relocation assistance involves a contract to which the employee must remain employed by the company for 1 year after relocation to avoid having to pay back the cost of relocation. So we are now 7 months into the relocation and my wife was presented with a job offer from another company.
If no signed contract exists would we be required to reimburse her current employer for the relocation assistance (if they came after us for it)?
If no signed contract exists would we be required to reimburse her current employer for the relocation assistance (if they came after us for it)?