Legal requirement for holiday - on me or employer?

smallpurplepill

Hi all

Think I am having a mad moment so hopefully someone can help me with this!

I am leaving a job in a couple of weeks and starting a new job with a break of a week in between.

For various reasons I haven't taken all my holiday entitlement in this job (holiday year is Jan-Dec calendar year) so presumably will be able to receive pay in place of this (Hasn't been discussed with boss/HR yet). I make it about 10 days I have accrued but haven't taken.

When I start the new job holiday is also calendar year so as I'll work about 1/4 of the year I would guess about 6 days of holiday will be assigned (also no bank holidays in the 2nd half of the year!) Meaning even if I manage to take the 6 days plus the 7 I've taken in the current employment, plus the existing Bank Holidays this adds up to 19 days plus the week off in between, though technically I am "unemployed" during that week! and will not be the 'statutory' 28 days (it's a 5 day week).

Other than this week being 'unemployed' I have not been able to take more than 2 consecutive days of holiday in this employment so this is the first full week off I'll have had in quite a long time, not sure if that is relevant though!

Just wondering I guess as it's a bit of an academic question... when changing job part way through a year, if holiday is owed to you then is there an obligation to take the legal miniumum somehow? (When I changed job before it was in December/January so did not really arise!)

Cheers in advance if anyone knows!

Sambucus_Nigra

No, there is no legal obligation. How exactly would that work?

PasturesNew

No obligation, your employer should pay you for the days you've not taken ... and if you start your new job the following day then that's not part of any laws or anything.

You, the individual, do not have to take the minimum holidays per year.

Googlewhacker

there is a legal requirement for the employer to provide you with with the statutory limit but if you have had ample chance to take it then it is of no concern for your current employer what you are doing after you leave and as such they could just pay you any outstanding holiday at the end of the notice.

So in your round about way, I don't think you cannot demand to take holiday to meet your yearly limit.

smallpurplepill

Thanks for the responses!

Yeah, I can't see how it would work in practice either. (Googlewhacker - I was not implying that I should have paid holiday out of proportion to the contractual amount, sorry if this was misleading!) ... just wanted to check I am not breaching some government obligation or something ;-)

Savvy_Sue

I thought there were 2 bank holidays (or public holidays, or something) in December: Christmas Day and Boxing Day, or the working days after they fall if they are at a weekend.

You'll need to check your new employer's policy on taking leave in the first year of employment: many don't like you to take paid leave before you've accrued at least most of it! Equally they may not want you to carry any forward. do check carefully how to book your entitlement.

getmore4less

If there were a legal requirement to actualy take holiday across employers then this would be complicated but the future employer would/should only be obliged to let you take the holiday unpaid that the previous employer has allready paid(so no double dip)


I think any new employer should pro rata at least the minimum statutory holiday so they need to factor that if the minimum 5.6 weeks(28 days) normaly includes some or all of the bank holidays.

So if you do the 1/4 year thats a min of 7 days with 2 bank holidays that makes 5. If the normal holidays are more than 20 then there should be a bit more.


If you want/need the holidays take them during your notice.

boo_star

If you have accrued holidays when leaving an employer can either;

A) Make you take them as long as they don't exceed your notice period

or usually

Pay you for the accrued holidays in your final pay packet.

Your new employer will simply pro-rata your remaining holiday.

There should be no discrepancy but I guess if you were due 20.2 days holiday from Employer 1 and 7.8 from Employer 2 they may have to for practicalities sake either offer you 8 days or ask you to take 0.2 days unpaid leave to ensure stupid situations like turning up to work for a marginal amount of time and taking the rest of the day off.