Wages still being paid AFTER leaving a job!

slandlondon

A first time situation for me and am unsure as to what my legal/statutory obligations are......

I recently came to the end of a multi-year fixed term contract job. my wages were paid monthly into one of several personal accounts I have.

Immediately after ending said job I ceased using or 'looking' at the account that my wages had been paid into. This was simply because I had started a new job and had opted to have the monthly wages from my new job paid into another of my personal bank accounts.

Three months after finishing the first job I remembered that I had not yet received a P45 from my former employer and was about to contact them to query this. Purely coincidentally, and for entirely separate reasons, I had cause to by chance check the balance on the bank account that had my former wages regularly paid into. I then immediately saw that, presumably for reasons of administrative incompetence on the part of my former employers (or more specifically the relevant finance/admin departments) I had been paid my former regular monthly wages for three more months after officially leaving.

As of typing this right now i have still not yet received my P45 but havent yet notified my employers that 3 months of wages have been paid in error. IF memory serves me correctly their wages system has a 'cutoff' date for processing regular end-of-month wages payments around about now (i.e mid-month). Thus I am tempted to delay telling them just to see IF a FOURTH payment is made in two weeks time!!! :-D

BUT..... on a serious note, the question is obviously one of a matter of, after notifying them of the apparent overpayments, do I legally have to return the money?

I'm guessing the answer is probably yes? Although, IF i were to deliberately NOT tell them of the overpayments until such time that they finally realise their error, presumably the onus would be upon them to prove that I was aware of the overpayments. As intimated above, it was only by chance I checked the account and saw the overpayments had been made. It could, after all, easily have been six months before I had spotted the overpayments - and presumably a record of 'activity' (i.e online banking login events) would prove my own inactivity on that particular account.

And, on a pure hypothetical, IF said company did (through incredulous incompetence) continue to make payments AFTER being notified would I not be required to return thos epayments made AFTER they had been warned.

I suspect that this situation of overpayment of wages AFTER someone has left a company is rare? So I say thanks in advance to anyone who can share any advice/experience.

dmg24

Yes, you have to return the money. The money is not yours, why would you even think you were entitled to it?

McKneff

You guessed right, you do legally have to pay it back.

Its still there where you found it, just pay it back, you wont be any worse of.

For the life of me I do not understand why yu have posted here.

Vader123

do I legally have to return the money?

Yes.

And, on a pure hypothetical, IF said company did (through incredulous incompetence) continue to make payments AFTER being notified would I not be required to return thos epayments made AFTER they had been warned.

Yes.

Look mate, its nice to think of free money, and its easy to say "not my fault", but you know that money is not yours. No, ifs or "theoretically" comes into it.

You need to contact them, tell them about it and pay the money back.

You might get replies along the lines of :

1) Shut up and hope
2) Make it hard for them
3) Its not your fault, don't pay them
4) Offer a £1 a week.

But you know the real answer don't you.

What if they underpaid you? What would your view be then "Can they do this?" , "where do I stand".

Legally, its not your money and as incompetant as they are, it needs to go back.

Vader

G51shopaholic

Same as if someone paid the money into your account by mistake - you can't keep it, but there is no obligation on you to tell them they've made a
mistake.

I keep silent and see how long it takes them to figure it out for themselves - you might be lucky and they get taken over and then I guess the money is all yours!

dmg24

G51shopaholic wrote: »

Same as if someone paid the money into your account by mistake - you can't keep it, but there is no obligation on you to tell them they've made a
mistake.

I keep silent and see how long it takes them to figure it out for themselves - you might be lucky and they get taken over and then I guess the money is all yours!

When a company gets taken over the assets and liabilities are usually transferred also.

A_nice_fellow

I think OP should steal the money, so when it is picked up and it has been squandered on DFS sofas they get the jail sentance they deserve

McKneff

It will show up in the accounts and audit. You will be looking over your shoulder all the time.

Pay it back, get it out of your head, feel better for it, then forget about it.

slandlondon

"Same as if someone paid the money into your account by mistake...."

Putting aside the morality issues, my question was a serious one - and wanted to find out where the law stands on this.

The above comment is along the lines of the other sort of similar situation that might be applicable, BUT i actually thought that IF someone erroneously deposits money into the bank account of a total stranger (instead of it going to the friend/family/etc it was intended for) then there is very little one can do about getting the money back IF the recipient doesnt want to be nice and readily give it back (i.e it would involve a legal case and attempts to prove that the money was not intended for said stranger). After all, said stranger could always claim numpty brains met in a pub, lost a t a game of cardsor whatever and said money was genuinely meant for him, etc etc.

Obviously this example is a bit different from the case of being erroneously continuing to be paid wages AFTER leaving a job - but the hypothetical of most interest is the one i referred to in which former employers CONTINUE to pay even after being notified of their error. In such a case I really wonder where the law stands on that?

slandlondon

There are other genuinely serious issues relating to this enquiry. For example, as low as rates are today, the bank account in question pay a nice rate of interest for large balances. With the amounts now sitting in it through wrongly paid wages for a job I am no longer doing, I am also accruing a modest monthly interest. Would I also have to return the interest i earned? Thus by stalling the return of the erroneoulsy paid wages, even for a modest amount of time, I could still have made something out of their incompetence.

Additionally, in response to the juvenile responses of some thus far, I could (possibly?) be very business minded in my returning the money to the former employers by 'charging' them for my time and inconvenience? Would I be legally wrong to return the money with some not excessive 'fee' deducted? Why not? If my time is worth £100 per hour........

smartpicture

slandlondon wrote: »

If my time is worth £100 per hour........

...then you've just wasted £300 trying to convince a bunch of internet strangers that you have a right to keep money that you have a clear legal (and moral) duty to return to it's rightful owner.