Advice please - What are employee rights if overpaid?

Julesiep

A guy that works with my husband has just been told by their boss that the boss has been overpaying him for the past year and that he has to repay the overpayment of nearly £1700. Thats around £150 overpayment a month after tax. Which means he will be getting around £150 a month less from now on anyway and also has to pay back £1700 as well which he just can't afford. Anyway the guy has worked in this very small company part time for over a year and only received three wage slips before never receiving anymore. By not getting a wage slip he has never knowingly been overpaid and he has mentioned not receiving wage slips to his boss on several occassions. Where does he stand in terms of repaying the overpayment. It appears this was a mistake by the previous book keeper and the new book keeper has just spotted it... but why was it not noticed at the end of the tax year. Also what happens in terms of tax and insurance when overpaid. Since being told that he has been overpaid the guy has raised another issue with his boss in terms of pay. He works monday, thursday and friday. Initially on bank holidays he worked tuesday instead and was paid for the bank holiday as well. But during the period of not receiving a pay slip he has now found out that he has worked the tuesday but not got paid for the bank holiday as well. The employees get a certain amount of holiday which includes bank holidays and christmas shut down. The guy has to work three days a week due to nature of the job and still should get his bank holiday paid even if he works a different day instead it is his holiday entitlement. Any thoughts or advice on this matter much appreciated.

Runnybabbit

Hi Jules

There is a thread going already with almost same circumstances.

My OH was overpaid by his employers and he's now stopped that amount on a monthly basis until the overpayment has been repaid. I believe the company has every right to do this. The tax and insurance will be adjusted accordingly by the relevant taxing authorities.

I know how difficult it must be to try and repay this amount back, perhaps some form of reduced repayment could be negotiated until it's all paid back?

As for the wage slips - I have no experience to make any comments, perhaps someone else can on here?

Babbit x

Julesiep

Is there a link for the thread. I have looked at some of the other overpayment threads but the main issue is that of the wage slip. The guy has been asking for a wage slip for ages but never got one so could never see what he was being paid for.

arclight

Itemised pay statements are required to be issued by the employer by law. Raise the matter with them (its s.1 Employment Rights Act 1996)

The matter relating to reclaiming overpayments is potentially not quite a straightforward as the last poster said (but is mostly so!)

There is a case where an employee can defend such an attempt to reclaim by way of "change of position". They will have to show:

i) The employer had made a representation of fact which caused the employee to believe the money was theirs and

ii) the employee changed their position in good faith and in reliance on that representation and

iii) the the overpayment was entirely the employers fault

The difficulty in such a defence is showing the "representation of fact" from the employer. Such a representation would have to be more than simply making the repeated payments.