Work contract and own IP

Hi all,

First post on this forum. I hope this is okay.

I'm in contract negotiations with a company which have a trial period before offering full-time employment.

Reading the contract, I felt the wording around own IP was a little vague. I am working on my own side project with some co-founders and was worried that they would be able to claim IP ownership of our work.

I asked for clarification by email. They went one better and added an appendix on the end of the contract stating that the specific project would be owned by us.

I showed this to a solicitor I know. They were surprised that the main body of the contract didn't reference the newly appended appendix (the body remains as it was). I asked for an adjustment to include a reference to the appendix in the body. They said they could not do this (stating too much behind the scenes work).

I'm wondering: Is the appendix and the reference to the appendix in the email enough? Or is the absence of a reference to the appendix in the body of the contract damning for our project?