I have been overpaid, can I set agenda for repayment?

[extremelyworried]

Hi. I would be extremely grateful for anyone's thoughts on this.

I have been on maternity leave this year, went back to work a couple of months ago. I have had a phone call to tell me that I have been overpaid and it is a significant amount. I am so worried about this and also very embarassed that I did not notice. They have told me not to worry (yeah right) and that they will put everything in writing. I have been told that overpayments must normally be paid back within 12 months. Realistically I cannot do this.
Can they force me to pay when they say, or can I say no and set my own repayment schedule? I am a member of a union, so could get their help if necessary.

If anyone can help me I would be really grateful. Thanks

if you have been overpaid by mistake i am fairly sure that employers are entitled to reclaim. if you are in local government there is generally a condition that they hvae to negotiate a repayment plan with you -not sure that it will be much help as i believe most them require repayment plan over 12 months max by direct deduction from salary - hope you get some helpful advice from your union.

ew can't face trying to explain in a lengthy post so I googled see here about overpayments, including stuff about whether it is a mistake in law or a mistake in fact.

Have a read and think about which kind of mistake yours was, whether it was reasonable for you not to notice the overpayment and whether you would be prepared to take any action should they deduct it anyway.

Thankyou. Will go and have a read of that link now. So worried about this, should have noticed really, but was busy with new baby etc, and just didnt.

Having read the stuff, if it turns out you do definitely need to repay it, appealing to their better nature might be your best bet, together with coming up with a proposal yourself.

I.e. don't just explain you can't afford it, propose a realistic quick-as-you-can-manage-it timescale as an alternative. Much more difficult to say no to that than someone just saying they can't manage the original proposal.

Good luck, hopefully you might find something which means you don't have to repay it, but in any case hopefully you can negotiate a bit of goodwill.

Hi, same thing happened to me, was overpaid by £800 ish and employer suggested repaying at £75 per month which i felt was too high. They asked what i was happy with and we settled on £50. To be honest i didn't really notice it coming out and it seemed to go quite quickly although i did have to remind them to stop taking it when it finished.

What sort of employer is it?

Good luck.

I work for the health service so a very big employer. I am happy to pay it back, but will definitely need to negotiate with them a repayment schedule as I just cannot afford a huge amount every month. Am waiting for the paperwork to arrive so that I know exactly how much it will be. So angry that someones mistake may potentially affect my family for quite some time to come.

Hi, I'm also a health service employee and our trust has overpaid all part-time staff from 2004 - some were for a few months, most for about a year, and others for the whole 3 years. In my trusts case it was a mistake interpreting the agenda for change contract so even if staff queried their pay they had been told that it was correct. The trust are now trying to get the staff to repay, but they want the repayments based over 10 months...which I think is a bit off considering in some cases they have overpaid for 3 years.
The union has been pretty useless in finding out whether the request for repayment is even legal. Union view is that staff should pay up.
Anyway, so far the affected staff that I know of have 'entered into negotiations' about repayments..so hopefully you may be able to pay less over a longer period. Good luck.

Depending on the circumstances of the mistake and you not noticing etc, you could think about trying to negotiate paying back half or something. Difficult to say without knowing the exact details but although you are happy to pay it back, if you feel that having read the links, you could have a case for not paying it back you could think about negotiating something like that.

Thankyou everyone for your replies. I am now waiting to get copies of my bank statements, and the wages office are forwarding me duplicate payslips (which they havent sent me throughout my mat leave). I think that I will have to negotiate a repayment schedule with them. It is quite a lot of money which realistically will take me quite some time to clear.

They should have been sending you copies - no wonder you did not know you had been overpaid. I am terrible and hardly ever check my bank acc (I know I know) so perhaps would not notice either.

I think it can only stengthen your case in setting a payment structure to suit you.

Thats what I am hoping. When I was on maternity leave the first time I got my payslip posted to me every month, but this time nothing. I should have chased that up I suppose, but its easy to say with hindsight isnt it!

You're lucky. I got overpaid last month when I returned from ML. However, I noticed it looked a bit high so specifically checked my pay slip and queried it.

They reduced my pay this month (significantly) to recoup it. Good thing I had noticed straight awat and was able to put the extra aside for this month because December is the most expensive month of the year!

Thank goodness you put the money aside. I am so angry at myself for not noticing this as I am normally so careful. I can only put it down to having a new baby, and a toddler and being busy. Always checked my account to make sure that there was money in it to cover the bills but that was about it. Dh's pay can vary wildly from one month to the next too depending on shifts etc, so clearly I didnt take any notice of the fact we had more than we should have.
I am also annoyed that payroll allowed this to happen though, due to someones mistake I could be paying this off for a long time, and ultimately my family will suffer for it.