hi everyone thanks for your support, he gave me 4weeks notice, and just said that with the way things were could not afford to keep me on, he was paying me £80.00 per day and yes it was on the books, i cleaned my own windows and dropped off the other lads and picked them up. but why pay someone 80 a day when you can pay someone 35, it just means he can earn more money that way, over the four years i have brought in around 250 houses for him, and that was just me, some of the people i know have said they only want me to clean for them so hes lost some already, and hopefully a few more will do the same. sorry it took so long to reply to your posts but had to go out.
If you have stated everything, he didn't dismiss you. He made you redundant. If you worked for him for four years, you are entitled to a minimum of four weeks redundancy pay (one week per year). If you are over forty years of age it goes up to one and a half weeks per year for each year of service that you were over forty. As this guy had you on his books, I assume he was paying your NI contributions? If not, he could be in bother.
Another issue is that it sounds like the younger lads started after you and he retained them. You may have a good case for unfair selection for redundancy due to the "last in, first out" principle. Winning such a case (as you probably would) would be the equivalent of winning an unfair dismissal case.
So let's see now. Four weeks pay at £80 a day comes to £1,600. Winning an unfair selection case could be anything really. Realistically, if you want to avoid the hassle of an employment tribunal (which will cost him more money), I reckon if you try to get an offer of 2 or 3 grand off him you won't be far wrong (N.B. I am not a solicitor).
IMPORTANT: Don't let this drag on. You have a maximum of 12 weeks to start this ball rolling or your case would be judged "out of time". The C.A.B. have all the forms and advice you would need. I had to go down this route once to get pay in lieu of untaken holiday from a company. As soon as they heard from the Employment Tribunal people, they settled with me and I withdrew the case. Oh yeah. That's another thing. Does he owe you any holiday pay for untaken holiday?
Play your cards right and you could get enough for a half reasonable WFP system to start you off.