Advice required - demand from former employer following Annual Leave overpayment

[elzorrogris]

Hi All,

 

I left work with a popular health service organisation back in July 2013. Over the course of the last week I've received letters stating that I was overpaid for annual leave in July, and the organisation are demanding £410, repayable immediately. They have enclosed an invoice and very crude excel breakdown of the financial aspect of this, although it isn't well presented and is difficult to understand what the calculations mean.

 

I'm thinking that, as this overpayment supposedly arose due to annual leave being overtaken, I should first of all request a detailed breakdown of what they have on file for my annual leave entitlement/taken to make sure that there hasn't been an admin error (although I don't have a personal record of annual leave taken and therfore have nothing to check it against other than my own memory)

 

Assuming that their calculations are correct and I do owe the money, what position am I in legally? I left the organisation over 8 months ago, so for them to demand instant repayment having not mentioned this in the months since I left seems unreasonable -and unrealistic considering I'm currently looking for employment.

 

any advice or guidance would be greatly appreciated with this

 

thanks

[Andyorch]

Thread moved to the appropriate forum.

 

Regards

 

Andy

[rebel11]

Hi elzorrogris

 

Welcome to CAG

 

What they've sent you at the moment is an invoice. The question is would they consider starting legal action for the amount they require payment for? Also if they go to court would you be able to make payment to them. If they don't receive payment, they might just right it off. It might be an idea to see what they send next. See if they send a letter before action (LBA) ?

[elzorrogris]

Hi elzorrogris

 

Welcome to CAG

 

What they've sent you at the moment is an invoice. The question is would they consider starting legal action for the amount they require payment for? Also if they go to court would you be able to make payment to them. If they don't receive payment, they might just right it off. It might be an idea to see what they send next. See if they send a letter before action (LBA) ?

 

Thanks for your greeting and advice.

 

Not sure to be honest. Being the NHS, are they obliged to take legal action or is it feasible that they might sell the 'debt' to a collection agency? -Is a sum of £410 worth pursuing for them through the county court?

 

I'm not in a position to pay at the moment, although I'm actively looking for work so that could change if they decided to push for legal action etc. Part of my concern is that this may be due to an error with their calculations due to my line manager/position changing three times in the final 12 months - perhaps my annual leave wasn't recorded correctly, although as mentioned I have no real records of my own to check it against, only a vague recollection from memory.

 

So in your opinion, the best course of action might be to wait for further written correspondence, then query whether their annual leave calculations are correct next?

 

thanks again

[Sidewinder]

I agree that it is probably wise to wait for now, however I suspect that they will be persistent - if this is the NHS (you weren't specific on that) then it may be that they want to be seen to be not simply writing off money - we have had something similar in my local Trust lately.

 

In the event of litigation, then there may be a defence of a change of position, however to succeed you may well have to demonstrate that you held a genuine belief, or better still that you were led to believe, that you were entitled to the money. You could say that they allowed the leave to be booked and paid it, so you believed that their system should have flagged if you were not entitled to the holiday, but a counter argument could also be that you should have been aware that you were booking holiday in excess of your entitlement so should have had an idea that it was wrong. It could go either way.

 

More viable, and only when and if you are satisfied that the money is owed, would be to seek a repayment arrangement based on your ability to pay. Naturally, being out of work, it would be very difficult to afford more than a bare minimum, however this would make it much harder to present a Court claim - it would be a very poor show to take action where the debtor had sought to agree a suitable repayment plan.

 

So, make them prove the amount that they claim, and if there is no getting away from the fact that you owe them, make an offer to pay by instalments.

[elzorrogris]

just a bit of an update on this issue.

 

Have received another 2-3 letters since my original post, the last one being a 'final demand for payment'. This letter mentions that if I dont respond within 7 days then the issue will be passed to an collection agency. I've already drafted out a response stating that I need to see documentary evidence of my recorded annual leave for the period in question, in order to check against my records that it has been recorded correctly (I will contest it as I don't see how they can prove which days off I had - I never had to sign anything to request annual leave, so it seems to me that I could claim there has been a human error with its recording - any thought?)

 

I read somewhere online that an employer can contact an ex employee up to 90s days after the termination of employment - can anyone verify if there is any truth in this, particularly in the UK? As they waited 8 months to contact me about this I'm hoping for a quick win!

 

And finally!... Who is still of the opinion that I should hold off with my response? Or is now the time to act? Will they have to write to me again before selling the debt on to an agency?

 

Thanks again for all help and advice; greatly appreciated