Final Salary Settlement

Gtunney

Hi All,

I have a bit of a dilemma on my hands at the moment. I am due to leave my current employer on the 21st February. I have been asking HR for 3 weeks to find out what my final pay etc will be.

My salary is paid monthly on the last working day of each month and is 1/12th of my yearly salary. Any overtime is paid a month in arrears.

Payroll cut off is the 10th of each month.

My employer has since said I will not be paid at all in February and instead will be paid everything at the end of March. I’m wanting to find out the legality of this as in my opinion asking anybody to go an entire month without pay is ludicrous.

Since HR and payroll knew of my leaving date before the cut off I’d have expected to be paid for my January Overtime and the 3 works I’ve worked in Feb at the end of Feb. Then any due holidays and overtime from February to be paid at the end of a March.

Would really appreciate some advice on this and where I stand.

Ja7188

Just to be absolutely clear - you're being paid nothing at all in February, even your basic salary?

StevenB12

My last two work places I had to work a month lying on, so I had left my previous job, then basically had to go two months without pay, as my first month I got nothing, and then wasn't paid until the 24th on the second month, which was obviously my first months pay. When I put my notice in I had to wait a month before I got that pay as well.

Not sure how legal it is etc but there are a few places known to do it.

Gtunney

Ja7188 wrote: »

Just to be absolutely clear - you're being paid nothing at all in February, even your basic salary?

Yes that is correct. They have said they will with hold my pay and then pay it in March with any arrears for February. So I will not even get my basic.

gettingtheresometime

Have they given a reason for this?

Ja7188

Given that your contract of employment should include details of pay dates, this does seem very odd...

Who has actually told you that you aren't getting anything until the end of March - your boss, or someone from HR/ payroll?

Gtunney

gettingtheresometime wrote: »

Have they given a reason for this?

This was the exact email I got from HR

“Yes, you would not be paid anything in Feb, that is standard process when anyone leaves the company as payroll is withheld for that month to process the full and final.”

But I would have thought I’d still get my basic and overtime incurred in January.

ohreally

You need to ask them why they are doing this, theres no need for it unless they are owed money and intend to clawback.

Ja7188

I guess they could argue that they need more time to ensure that any overtime payments etc. are correct as they won't easily be able to recover any over-payments after you leave, but it seems very odd to not pay your basic salary in February...

As per the above, clarify why they're doing this - I wonder if whoever sent you that e-mail has gotten things muddled up!

nicechap

Whilst odd, I doubt there's very much you can do anything about it. Any legal process to enforce payment would take very much longer than the time period being proposed.

It doesn't seem logical to withhold January's bonus payment as well, maybe its intention is to stop people leaving without giving plenty of notice as it would appear quite a disincentive.

What kind of industry are you in?

Masomnia

I suspect it's just that they don't trust their employees to pay anything back in the event that they owe the company more than their final payment would be. Or that it will be difficult to recover under those circumstances.

Imho it's a breach of contract/unlawful deduction from wages but as above by the time you could do anything about it they'd have paid you! Sounds like you're best off out.