OH contract was ended, now 2months later they want £210.15 overpaid salary?

laurenjs88

Hi there,

Was wondering if I could get any advice, My OH had some time off sick in december so his company terminated his employment contract as of the 16th December 2009, they said they would pay his remaining holiday etc... with Decembers pay packet.

So he recieved his wages, less than a usual month as we expected but the holiday pay had made up a fair amount, so obviously we've used the money as we normally would with his wages.

We've recieved a letter this morning: Dear Mr ****

Your Manager has recently informed us that you left the company on the 16th of December 2009, Due to the timing of this notification there has been an overpayment of Salary.

(break down of tax etc)

I would appreiciate it if you would kindly send us a cheque for £210.15

etc etc...

Were both a little bit baffled as to what to do now, the letter is dated the 9th of Jan. It screams incompitence to me but we dont know what the law surroundign this is? There is no way i can magic £210 out of thin air, im due to have a baby in a few weeks an OH is out of a job!

Any advice would be appreiciated!

getmore4less

how long had he worked there?

laurenjs88

He was there 6 months.

jdturk

If they have overpaid you they can claim it back, however if you are struggling you can offer a payment plan which as long as its reasonable (ie not £1 a month) they have to accept this repayment schedule

sharpy2010

This happened to me in a previous job. They sent a request for £400 overpayment in wages, which I promptly binned.

Never heard from them again...

jdturk

sharpy2010 wrote: »

This happened to me in a previous job. They sent a request for £400 overpayment in wages, which I promptly binned.

Never heard from them again...

lol lucky you on that one! They are entitled to claim it back but they either have rubbish admin people or thought it wasn't worth the hassle

proplusplus

Isn't there something whereby if you reasonably assumed this payment was yours and had no reason to believe it wasn't, then an overpayment which has been spent and cannot be paid-back then it's not your fault.

proplusplus

proplusplus

Found this

However, there is a way of keeping that unearned cash, but it’s not simple. If you can firstly show that the overpayment was the company's fault, secondly, that it was reasonable for you not to know that you were being overpaid and thirdly, that you have acted to your disadvantage on the assumption that the salary payment was correct (i.e. you’ve spent it all) then you may be able to claim the overpayment is not recoverable by your employers. Remember though, it’s a tricky process, and if anything goes wrong, you may pay the price with the money as well as your job.

sharpy2010

jdturk wrote: »

lol lucky you on that one! They are entitled to claim it back but they either have rubbish admin people or thought it wasn't worth the hassle

Well they tried to claim it back, as of course they sent the letter. At the time I didn't have the money, if I did have I'd have probably just paid it and been done with it. Bit of good fortune really :-) Can't see them trying to reclaim it after 7 years, especially since I've moved three times since then!

laurenjs88

Thanks Proplusplus, Think we'll dig out the wage slip & letter and go to CAB, If his manager left it nearly a month to even tell the company that he'd terminated OH contract i think they should be taking it out of that muppets wages!

jazzyman01

You mentioned that he had hoilday owing, has that been taken into account when working out the overpayment? It wont be the first time that a company has "forgotten" that bit!