[ralferoo]

Not true - if you have a contract with a notice period, this is valid from the start except for a specified probation period. This is normally anywhere ranging from 1 month to 6 months. I've got a friend working in Hong Kong who had 12 months probation, which I'd never heard of before. In my experience, probation has usually been 1 or 2 months. It sounds like you have experience of a weirdly long probation period.

The thing about two years is for the statutory minimum notice period, which would be a week for the first 2 years, and a week per complete year worked after that up to a maximum of 12 weeks. However, if you agree to a contract specifying longer a notice period, that takes precedence.