Salary Overpayment Originating from 2005 - Can Payroll Claim That Far Back??

Another_not_new_user

getmore4less wrote: »

That's a tiny amount, the crazy thing is it will ne costing them more in time and effort to document this properly and provide a detailed breakdown.

Estoppel principles come into play.

I was just waiting for someone to come up with it.


If - and it is a much bigger if than anyone ever gives credit to - estoppel is applicable, it will only be determined by a court of law. So if the OP's friend wants to chance her hand (and personally I might not be willing to do so on such a risky basis) she will have to take legal action against her current employer. As I suggested earlier - great career move. Whatever is wrong with starting at the internal end of the process and putting the argument that this is unfair to the employer. They may actually agree. Or at least compromise on an agreement.

TAVERN

Undervalued wrote: »

It may have been but it is also an employee's responsibility to check that their pay is correct.

She can certainly ask to repay over a period of time and they may well agree but they don't have to.

It is not her responsibility if she is unaware of the mistake that they made in the first place!

duchy

As she works for an LA then getting the union involved may prove to be useful.

Undervalued

TAVERN wrote: »

It is not her responsibility if she is unaware of the mistake that they made in the first place!

Sorry, but it is at least partly her responsibility.

Whilst I agree a small error can sometimes be difficult to spot in a monthly payment, at the very least an employee should check their annual P60 and query anything they can't reconcile.

Virtually any error can lawfully be reclaimed by the employer without advanced notice so you are leaving yourself wide open to problems if you don't keep a careful check on your pay.

I'm not suggesting it is the case here but it is amazing how much easier it seems to be for employees to spot any underpayment!

getmore4less

TAVERN wrote: »

It is not her responsibility if she is unaware of the mistake that they made in the first place!

Depends how easy it would be to spot.

What was the basis for the pay given you say this was term time

salaried, hourly, prorata holiday, paid while working spread out over 12 month etc. what details were on the pay slips that could help identify errors.

Are they in agreement with the new calculations and the proposed total overpayments.

They got it wrong once could be wrong again

Has this been documented in detail or just supplied as a you owe us this amount.