Recovery of Overpaid Holiday

Patw

Hi All,
Today I have received a letter, that states that I have outstanding overpaid holiday to settle which they informed me about in a letter that dates back to 10/2016. I have left that employer in 05/2016. So I've got an letter stating that I booked more holidays then I was entitled to 5 months after i left.

To add a background, I have send 3 emails regard the matter back in 2016 to ask for clarification as all they did was put random sum of money in a letter and expected to be paid without any supporting documents such as breakup of that amount. Also they listed me on wrong position which is paid at least £3 more per hour which compromises the sum they asking for.

After 3 letters and 3 weeks I've got response:

Thank you for your recent emails on this matter and I apologise for the delay in our response.

I have gone back to my client to request a full breakdown of the figure and will clarify if this is calculated correctly on your occupation. Once I have their response I will return to you.

That email was sent in 11/2016 and I have heard nothing until today. In letter I got today they baldly state that they cannot trace my response, even though email above was sent by Deputy Claims Team Manager.

They go as far as stating "We would like to politely remind you that this matter is outstanding and that we intend to continue to pursue the unpaid amounts. We are not prepared to allow the matter to remain outstanding but would like to avoid litigation if at all possible."

After reading this i felt like it was my fault, even though I contacted them so many times without success. Now they are giving me 7 days or they will take legal actions against me.

Is anyone experienced this type of situation and could shed a light on what I could do or how should I approach it.

Thank You for your time
Patryk

Diamandis

Surely you knew how many holidays you were using though? How many holidays did you believe you took and when does the holiday year start with the company?

elsien

They won't take legal action if they can possibly avoid it. They've put that in because they think you are ignoring them.
Your email trail has obviously gone astray - maybe the person who was dealing with it has either overlooked it or left the company.
Write back to them to the person/address on your most recent letter, enclose a copies of your emails and their response and politely point out you are happy to pay as soon as you are clear that the amounts being claimed are correct. Stop emailing and do it in writing from here on in, keeping copies and proof of postage.

sangie595

They have six years to pursue this. So it would seem sensible to maybe phone them and have a conversation? If you owe this money, then it is due, and they obviously aren't going to go away. Or stop emailing and start writing, recorded delivery. Emails may be commonplace these days, but they don't have anything like the same degree of certainty that they have been received or read.

Sarastro

Definitely keep copies of everything. Write to the HR Manager recorded delivery saying you are willing to repay the over-payment but for the following reasons don't believe the amount is correct. Ask them to clarify the amount.

Are you able to estimate what the amount should be? If so, it might be worth putting in your letter what you believe the amount to be and suggesting that if they will accept that as full and final settlement, you would be willing to send them that and save everyone an awful lot of effort. Not sure where you would stand legally if you did this and they chose to pursue the matter, but they might decide the difference isn't worth the hassle. If they did take it further, they would be breaking the full and final bit and would have to return it.

Patw

Surely you knew how many holidays you were using though? How many holidays did you believe you took and when does the holiday year start with the company?

I cannot remember exactly when holiday year started and how many holidays I took. Decision about leaving the company was short notice due to arising conflict of interests. I didn't want to leave but they gave me no other choice. I assumed that when I left, they would take all the overpaid holidays from my final wage, when I got my full wage I assumed that I was not over the entitled holidays, so i did not thought about it until I got a letter.

They won't take legal action if they can possibly avoid it. They've put that in because they think you are ignoring them.
Your email trail has obviously gone astray - maybe the person who was dealing with it has either overlooked it or left the company.
Write back to them to the person/address on your most recent letter, enclose a copies of your emails and their response and politely point out you are happy to pay as soon as you are clear that the amounts being claimed are correct. Stop emailing and do it in writing from here on in, keeping copies and proof of postage.

Thanks for advice, I will have to write a letter rather then email, it seems they are not very organised. Do I have a right to ask for a sum to be broken down if I believe that it is wrong? They clearly lack correct information as they stated wrong job title which salary is much higher than salary I was on.

They have six years to pursue this. So it would seem sensible to maybe phone them and have a conversation? If you owe this money, then it is due, and they obviously aren't going to go away. Or stop emailing and start writing, recorded delivery. Emails may be commonplace these days, but they don't have anything like the same degree of certainty that they have been received or read.

Thanks for reply, as I stated above I might have to do it old fashioned way as you lot advise.

Definitely keep copies of everything. Write to the HR Manager recorded delivery saying you are willing to repay the over-payment but for the following reasons don't believe the amount is correct. Ask them to clarify the amount.

Are you able to estimate what the amount should be? If so, it might be worth putting in your letter what you believe the amount to be and suggesting that if they will accept that as full and final settlement, you would be willing to send them that and save everyone an awful lot of effort. Not sure where you would stand legally if you did this and they chose to pursue the matter, but they might decide the difference isn't worth the hassle. If they did take it further, they would be breaking the full and final bit and would have to return it.

As I said I can't remember when holiday year started, but I know people that work for that company aswell, so they might help establishing that information.

Because they were not very well organised I always took a photo of every holiday form I submitted, I will have look through my photos and see whether I can work out how many days I was entitled to and how many days I took.


Thank You users for help, I hope my responses make sense, I never posted on forum before so I hope layout I used to answer is clear.

Thanks
Patryk

elsien

Patw wrote: »

Thanks for advice, I will have to write a letter rather then email, it seems they are not very organised. Do I have a right to ask for a sum to be broken down if I believe that it is wrong? They clearly lack correct information as they stated wrong job title which salary is much higher than salary I was on.

Yes you can ask for a breakdown, and include the reasons why you think it might be wrong - tell them you need to check they are working it out on the basis of the correct job/role salary, and say why. It might be though that they have used the correct information just put the wrong job title in the letter. You could include a list of the dates that you took, if you think that might speed things up.