If you have been overpaid do you have to pay it all back straight away

[islandofsodor]

Dh was overpaid in his old job about £1,500. He reported it but the next month they did it again for 3 months in total. He has now been sent an invoice for the whole amount. (Arrived Xmas Eve we have been trying to get it sorted since September)

The problem is his bank account was hugely overdrawn and it is now just about in credit.

I know the money is not and never was ours but it would make life so much easier if we could pay it back in installments .

Can we do this or can they say you knew it was a mistake so give it all back.

the length of time and cost imlication for going to court would be much more prohobitve - i would suggest - than making an agreement.

they can't MAKE you do anything unless they go to court.

so i would send them a letter make it brief - Dear x,
RE: over overpayment

I will pay £xxx monthly until xx february.

Regards

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don't give them an option!

Custy's very wise, as always. State what you want to happen - make a reasonable offer that you can manage.

I was overpaid. My employers are going to work with me to figure out a repayment plan that I can afford each month - their fault, lot of money (small amount over a long period of time).

I am sure they will be able to arrange something, especially as your DH has been trying to sort it out. There is a website on line - google 'overpayment of wages' to find it, which is very useful. I cannot remember it off the top of my head.

I think you should give it all back, you knew from the start it wasnt yours and should have simply kept it to one side or simply issued a cheque back to the employer.

Different if you didn't know about the overpayment but you quite clearly did.

Problem is if it's paid of the over draft their bank may now reduce the amount of over draft so they can't actually pay it back anyway!!!

I would suggest as custy says that they reduce his future salary by x a month for x months until it is repaid - perhaps 6 months?

When I reduced my hours I was overpaid for two months, at the previous salary.They took it back over three months.

Yes, it did pay off the overdraft which is now due for renewal and I'm not sure we will get that amount again.

Dh no longer works for them.

Oh, and we would have sent them a cheque but its a local council and we didn't quite know who or where to send it so it would be accounted for. Paymaster services covers a lot of departments and his old boss says there were major cock ups which included some staff not being paid at all.

He was overpaid 3 times over 3 months.

Well in that case I would explain the situation in writing and send the first installment chq with the letter. Present it as fait accomplait (sp?) certainly if they took it to court it wouldn't stand as you are repaying it.

are you ina union, get them to help also, i was over paid and so they just didnt pay me then next month which was a nightmare, however they now owe all of my department at least 3.5 years back pay as we havent been given our pay increase for years, they keep saying they will pay it next month and it never shows. the nhs are a lot quicker to take it away than give it back to us!

my friend is paying back £10 a month as they overpaid her for a long time, even though she told them but they didnt sort it out. then they wanted it all as a lump sum back so she got the union in to help her arrange payment terms