Old employer claims I will not receive my final pay due to holidays taken

lskins94

Hello all,
This is my first post on behalf of my Mum who left her job on Friday (after giving her notice). She received a call today saying that she will not receive her final pay due to holidays taken during the notice period. These holidays were already booked before she had handed in her notice and before she even knew that she had a new job. These holidays were not extra days off but within her entitlement. It wasn’t written in her employment contract either. If it helps, she has been at this place of work for 5 years.

She does not know if this the right thing for her previous employer to do as it hasn’t happened before in all of her days of employment. We have looked at the gov.uk website but would appreciate any advice or information that you can give.

Thank you very much in advance

Comms69

So how many holidays has she had this year? And when is the holiday year for this company?

lskins94

The holiday year is from April to the following April and out of 219 hours (they do it by hours), she has had 158 of those hours.

Oakdene

Even looking at it without working it out, it is obvious she has used more holidays than she is entitled to on a pro rata basis.

i_want_to_believe

She has worked 50% of the holiday year and should therefore be entitled to 50% of her holiday allowance
50% of her allowance of 219 hours is 109.5, therefore pro rata she has used more than her entitlement. Anything in excess of this would be taken from any final salary or be expected to be repaid.

indianabones

"She received a call today saying that she will not receive her final pay due to holidays taken during the notice period. These holidays were already booked before she had handed in her notice and before she even knew that she had a new job."

Two seperate issues here, the guys above have explained and it's common knowledge if you use up your holidays pro-rata and then some, you'll owe them money.

However the amount you get paid is determined by when she is leaving as well. Unless she left right at the start of a pay cycle, you'd think she's be getting some pay if not all. If it's at the start of a cycle, then be grateful they're not asking you to pay up.

lskins94

Thank you very much

TBagpuss

If she is unclear she can ask the employer to give her a breakdown of how they have calculated what she is (or is not) entitled to, but as others have sad, it sounds as though she'd taken more holiday than she had accrued, so they are entitled to (in effect) treat the extra as unpaid days off. In the same way, if she had taken less than she'd accrued, she would have been entitled to be paid for the holiday time she had accrued but not used.

TELLIT01

It would appear that she has taken roughly 8 1/2 months worth of holiday entitlement but only entitled 6 months worth. She's been 'overpaid' by around 45 hours, which is why her final pay will be reduced.

getmore4less

Does the employment contract have recovery of overtaken holiday clauses.