Wages overpayment

mr_cool

I worked for about 18months for a company leaving in august 2008. About 5 weeks ago I recieved my P45 along with a letter asking that I pay back a overpayment (around £150). They stated that x amount was for taking more holidays than should of and x was because I was paid for a full month when I left half way through. I handed in my notice in plenty time and had taken the holidays which my employer said I was entilted to.

I had never reliased that I had been overpaid and don't see how it could be this much overpayment. My contract hours were 15 hours a week but I often worked more than this sometimes up to full time hours. Due to often working different hours and the pay system being a bit weird. I usually just accepted that my pay seemed about right. Because I had often worked more hours I should have been entilted to more holidays as well.

Not sure about how to approach it at the time I left it. I have now recieved another letter asking for payment in 21days to aviod further action. It also says please let them know if I can't pay by then or have any queries.

I will not be paying anything until I am totally satisfied that it is correct which I am not. I never even recieved my final pay slip. I left mid august and recived my august pay plus a final pay in september. I had to make a point of asking them for the august slip but never got the september one.

I am going to send them a email or maybe letter. Could anyone give me advice on how I should approach this.

Thanks in advance

Motivatedworkingmum

IMO they calculated your final pay. They made the mistake. They have no outstanding pay to take your 'debt' from as you have left their employment. I cannot see what 'further action' they can take to ensure you pay this. If they cannot calculate your pay correctly then that is their problem. It sounds as if their payroll dept is less than 'on the ball' if you only got your p45 5 weeks ago and you left in aug 08. ....thats 4 months late! This is my opinion and would wait until others come on and advise also. Having been invloved in the payroll process in organisations for many years that I have worked for have never had to ask for pay back. Very poor practice. I would either after some thought do one of two things a) ignore the letter or b)call them and assertively tell them that your final pay was calculated by them, agreed by them, paid by them and IYO correct and will not be paying this back.

mr_cool

Motivatedworkingmum wrote: »

IMO they calculated your final pay. They made the mistake. They have no outstanding pay to take your 'debt' from as you have left their employment. I cannot see what 'further action' they can take to ensure you pay this. If they cannot calculate your pay correctly then that is their problem. It sounds as if their payroll dept is less than 'on the ball' if you only got your p45 5 weeks ago and you left in aug 08. ....thats 4 months late! This is my opinion and would wait until others come on and advise also. Having been invloved in the payroll process in organisations for many years that I have worked for have never had to ask for pay back. Very poor practice. I would either after some thought do one of two things a) ignore the letter or b)call them and assertively tell them that your final pay was calculated by them, agreed by them, paid by them and IYO correct and will not be paying this back.

Thanks for the reply. I did ignore the intial letter as I was unsure what to do but have now recieved a second letter. I agree that it was a mistake on their part and not my fault. I will not be in any rush to say OK heres a cheque for £150 as I will not just take their word for it.

zzzLazyDaisy

The 'further action' they can take is to make a claim in the small claims court.

Provided they can satisfy the court that their new calculation is the correct one, and they did make a mistake, then you would be ordered to pay the money. But, whether they really would take such action over such a small sum (to them) is another matter.

If it did go to court and you lost, you could always hand over a cheque there and then - you wouldn't get a CCJ against you, although there would be some court costs added to the debt, so you could end up paying more in the end.

The first thing you need do do is to write to them asking for a full breakdown of how they have calculated this figure. Mark the letter 'without prejudice save as to the issue of costs'. If they issue court proceedings without first providing the information requested, and you subsequently lose the case, you can show the court your letter and ask the court to refuse to award court costs owing to their failure to provide sufficient information before starting court proceedings.

Good luck

mr_cool

Thanks,
I think I should ask them for a more detailed breakdown of how they calculated it then?

zzzLazyDaisy wrote: »

The first thing you need do do is to write to them asking for a full breakdown of how they have calculated this figure. Mark the letter 'without prejudice save as to the issue of costs'. If they issue court proceedings without first providing the information requested, and you subsequently lose the case, you can show the court your letter and ask the court to refuse to award court costs owing to their failure to provide sufficient information before starting court proceedings.

Would it be wise to put that on this letter if I am just asking them for a deatiled breakdown?

zzzLazyDaisy

mr_cool wrote: »

Thanks,
Would it be wise to put that on this letter if I am just asking them for a deatiled breakdown?

The risk is that you may be seen to be accepting that you owe the money and just disputing how much you should have to pay back. At the moment there is no evidence to show that you owe any money.

So at the very least, when you ask for the breakdown, you should add the following sentence....

'Please note, this request should not be taken as an admission of liability, which is not accepted'

piggeh

Write back to them asking for copies of their workings, your final pay slip, etc, so you can satisfy yourself that this is money owed. Make sure it does not include tax that they paid from your wages or NI (as naturally you havent received those parts of your wage).

If you DO owe them the money, then ask to pay it in stages so that you can afford to pay it off (eg £10 a month or whatever). If not, then write back and explain why. I doubt they'll take you to court for £150 - it will cost them more that that in time/wages to do so!

sazziecee

The only thing I have to add, is that you only accrue holidays on your contracted hours, not any overtime.

It's rubbish, I used to work full time hours but was only contracted 13 hrs a week so I hardly got any holiday entitlement.

Still doesn't explain why they let you take more hols than you were entitled to in the first place though, I think they have a cheek asking for the money back but MAYBE they are allowed to as you didn't actually accrue the leave?

whitfreak

Random point I was always been paid in arrears (after I did the work), so you leaving half way though a month shouldnt have led to an overpayment, unless their payrol system is completely !!!!!!, or you were paid in advance (rare).

Most places I've worked will let you take a limited amount of holiday over your current accrued total if there is enough of the holiday year to still earn the days back. It saves everyone trying to claim their final couple of days before the end of the holiday year and bad morale when everyone cant take it. But if you dont earn it back then yes they can deduct the appropiate holiday pay. I earned holiday on overtime but then again there wasnt an increased overtime payrate so i'm not sure what the law is on this.

So back to OP write to them for a full break down, making sure you've that you say that you don't accept liability at this point. Check their break down with your payslips. Also make sure that what they think they should have paid you matches whats on your P45, otherwise you could end up slightly over paying tax in your new job. Once you've worked out if you owe anything then either write back stating why you don't, or write back with a repayment plan you can afford.

mr_cool

Thanks I think I will ask them for a breakdown then.

LittleVoice

whitfreak wrote: »

Random point I was always been paid in arrears (after I did the work), so you leaving half way though a month shouldnt have led to an overpayment, unless their payrol system is completely !!!!!!, or you were paid in advance (rare).

It is quite easy to see how the OP could have been paid for the whole month of August though leaving in the middle.

Presumably they were paid monthly and even if this were at the end of the month their payroll department appears to be claiming to have paid for the whole month of August instead of the number of days actually employed. (They appear to have paid for August in September.)

Though not the case here, monthly paid staff are often paid in advance - insofar as they may be paid on, say, the 17th of a month for the whole month. In that case they are paid partly in arrears (for the part of the month before pay day) and partly in advance (for the rest of the month). I have certainly paid in that way in a number of organisations - though it may now be less common.