Resigned - Employer Now Refusing To Allow Me To Take Any Leave Due

zzzLazyDaisy

WOW! I am amazed this thread is still running! How did that happen? I thought OP's question was answered on the first page!

At the risk of repeating what others have said, the law states that you must give the employer advance notice that you want to take holiday. This notice should be at least twice as long as the amount of holiday you want to take. For example, you should give two weeks' notice for one week's holiday. Your employer can refuse permission for your holiday as long as they give you notice which is at least as long as the holiday requested. So to refuse a request for a week's leave, they would have to tell you a week in advance.

There is absolutely no requirement for reasonableness or for the employer to justify the decision. If the refusal to allow leave results in outstanding holidays at the end of the employment, then the employee must be paid for those days.

None of the above changes the obligation to work notice as stipulated by the contract in any way.

If the employee breaches the contract by leaving early without working out their full notice there is a risk that they may be sued by the employer for the extra costs and expenses arising out of the breach of contract. It is fairly rare for this to happen, unless the employee is a senior manager with a long notice period, or if the employee holds a position which may have extreme consequences as a result of his/her early departure, such as the loss of a major client, or the collapse of a lucrative project, for example.

Having said that, I have personal experience of a hairdresser being sued by a (fairly vindictive) employer, because a number of clients cancelled appointments during what would have been the employee's notice period. The amounts were relatively small but they were inflated by the court costs. The employee paid up in the end but not without first experiencing a considerable amount of stress.

You make your decisions and you take your chances - but as others have said, don't try to introduce moral arguments into this - the judges are only concerned with applying the law - and on the facts as you have presented them to us, the law is very clear in this case.

Sambucus_Nigra

It wasn't running, it's been dead for 12 days.

zzzLazyDaisy

Ah sorry - I have been away for a couple of weeks and this thread was flagged up on my user CP when I logged in today.

Note to self.. check dates in future