Ex Employer refusing to pay wages owed

mel19632

I left my employment at my former company in Setember 2008. The payslip arrived and we were very surprised to see that it was only about £300 when we were expecting £1,200.

The amount we were expecting was my salary pro rated for the month, plus my commission for sales plus mileage claims.

I would just like to highlight that the company had been struggling with cash flow for a while and therefore I had agreed verbally with one of the directors of the company not to claim for petrol expense each month, but to roll up the claims until cash flow was better.

I contacted the director in September 2008 asking her to explain the difference between the pay and the amount we were expecting and received only a voicemail from her saying that the money would be paid in due course.

We wrote a number of times between November 2008 and July 2009, until we decided that enough was enough and that we would take court action.

We wrote to the directors at their registered company address to inform them that we would take court action, but received no reply. We issued the court papers and today have received a hand delivered letter disputing the whole amount.

They have incorrectly stated that I took 20 days of holiday- firstly can I ask them to prove this? The amount paid has had the excess holiday "taken" deducted from my salary.

Secondly, they say that the mileage payments are not contractual/discretionary and therefore they do not have to pay them as they were not claimed in the correct month (see above regarding the verbal discussion with one of the directors as to the reason for this).

Thirdly, they had stated that I did not serve one months notice, however again the reduced notice period was agreed verbally with the same director.

They are a small company of three full time staff, one of which being the director but also have two other directors that do not have an active role in the day to day running of the business. However the director who agreed all of this is no longer a director but is still an employee.

As there are a lot of grey areas that have been agreed verbally that they can deny if we do take them to court then I could potentially be liable to pay for their costs and end up in a worse position than I am now.

We would really appreciate any help/advice on this. Thanks in advance.