Overpaid in final payslip following termination of contract

danlibbo

A month ago I finished a fixed-term-contract at a large payroll and recruitment company and have now received a letter asking for me to repay two overparyments in my final payslip.
1. Work days: They claim to have overpaid my final month by two days (as they pay up to the 30th but I left on the 28th)
2. Leave: They claim that I took 6 more days leave than my allowance in the second 6-months of the contract (the contract was split across two leave years)
Leave: As the HR portal used by the company varied wildly in my allowance for the second leave year, I sought clarification from HR and have several emails and diaried phone calls advising me of my leave amounts and I did not exceed the values quoted in these.
Work days: In the emails provided clarifying leave, I also had HR confirm my contract end date; I advised three levels of managers (and kept bugging them as I wanted a new contract) 6-months from the end; As I was actually supporting the system through which my contract was managed, I checked that the values were correct as part of my training.
Considering that:1. I have spent the money received a month ago,
2. the overpayment was not my fault and
3. I trusted the large payroll company to run its payroll correctly as they had the previous 11 months, did not notice the overpayment and was not advised until a month later
Would I have a fair case for an estoppel defense?

jobbingmusician

Too legal for me - I have no idea what an estoppel defence is, or even if it exists. (An estoppel defense is likely to be something American!!!!)

Why not just write to them and point out that it's their mistake, since you did NOT take additional leave (quote emails) and your end date was 30th as advised?

Pricivius

It appears that the facts of the matter are that you received an overpayment and you therefore owe money to your former employer. Looking at it from a moral standpoint, if it was the other way round and they owed you money due to an underpayment, I don't think you would be happy if they refused because you made a mistake when you put your timesheet in or filled out your holiday request, for example.

You can try an estoppel defence in the hope that it puts the employer off chasing. There is case law which suggests it can work. However, my understanding is that it will come down to whether it would unfair to require you to repay. This is decided by looking at the sum in question and your ability to pay, if you have spent all the money. For example, if you owe £300 and currently earn £3,000 a week, I doubt the Court would be prepared to wipe out the debt.

Uncertain

I would basically agree.

There are very few circumstances indeed where you could legally avoid repayment. One that has worked in the past (an ex employee of Barclays Bank IIRC) was where it was held that the employee had good reason to believe that they were being paid the correct salary.

Obviously you could try it on, they may choose not to pursue the matter if you make it difficult. I will leave the morals up to you!

danlibbo

Hahaha I wish I was on £3000 pw! The actual value is closer to 70% of my weekly pay.

As far as morals go, in my view they're either incompetent and trying to make me fix their mistake (to my detriment) or deceitful. My experience with the company make it seem that each is just as likely as the other. :S

Daedalus

Estoppel is a messy thing, but yes, on those facts you could petition for their claim to be estopped.

somethingcorporate

Had they not paid you enough would you be happy with them claiming estoppel had they spent it on a staff party instead?

Seriously though, pay back what you owe. You never know when you may need to work for or with people from that company and something like this could certainly come back to haunt you.

Everything in the world of work is down to reputation, especially for contractors and you could find this a sticking point in future.

People are allowed to make mistakes, this could cause someone to lose their job for making a simple error the you end up punishing them for.

McKneff

It is quite feasible that they did not notice the error till the following month.
Legally, they have six years to chase you for it.

The question I would ask is 'did you notice that they had overpaid you'

Daedalus

somethingcorporate wrote: »

Had they not paid you enough would you be happy with them claiming estoppel had they spent it on a staff party instead?

They wouldn't be able to.

somethingcorporate

Daedalus wrote: »

They wouldn't be able to.

Thanks Einstein, it was facetious. Did you not notice the at the end?

Daedalus

somethingcorporate wrote: »

Thanks Einstein, it was facetious. Did you not notice the at the end?

I tuned emoticons out when my balls dropped. Sorry.