Friend has been overpaid for the last 5 years.....

[Kittypickle]

She is on maternity leave at the moment and just realised she has been paid for an extra 20 or so hours a month, resulting in an extra £4k a year for the last 5 years.

The person who has been dealing with the wages has been sacked recently because of their general conduct and incompetency. She is obviously very worried now that she has worked out the overpayment that she might be made to repay it. The company are hard nosed enough to ask for it as they have shafted her as much as possible on her maternity pay.

She will ring the CAB but has anyone got any idea of what the situation is in a case like this ? Is there a cut off point to how far back they can ask her to repay the money ? Any help would be much appreciated

bump

i hope she keeps it

FWIW, I think it's bullshit that a company can turn around and claw it back.

If they were too assinine and cheap to keep proper accounts, then they deserve to get screwed.

So the only person who has realised this is her ?

Keep quiet about it!

um I think ongoing payment can be seen as a 'contract' of sorts .. particularly if there's no written contract

she could work out hourly rate based on what she's been paid and feign surprise that they think she would be paid less

I think she has a contract stating the correct hours but her wage slip has been coming through with a higher amount on. She didn't realise this until she actually sat down and tried to work it out from her hourly rate and the hours and found that it doesn't add up. I think he has paid her as 25 hours instead of 20.

She was thinking of going back in September at her 20 hours and using the holiday she has accrued so that she works 10 hours a month for 4 months. But she is wondering now whether she should tell them that she is going back in April part time at 10 hours ie on a new contract so they don't notice what has happened with her previous salaries. Paying it back would be a complete financial nightmare for them.

i hope someone comes along with more knowledge - i think much like what twig said, after an amount of time isn't it considered a contract in itself?

I think you're right, she accepted it in good faith. If it were a sudden huge lump, then that would be different.
A court would be not enforce a debt of that age, though it may say she has to give back the last few months.
However hard nosed they are, going to court will be terribly awkward for the company. apparently they don't have decent records, so even showing what she should or should not have been paid is going to be hard.
Also it will be embarassing, and not cheap.

But as Lorina suggests, it's probable that this is the tip of the iceberg, and that large sums are unaccounted for.

I am of course not a lawyer.

I used to be involved in some monies recovry in my last job and have dug out this wording:

"For an overpayment of salary the deduction of the money from the employee is not required by law, but is allowed by law. The company does not have to tell the employee in advance although they will usually do so if reasonably practical or where the company believes the error may not be apparent to the employee."

Because of the amount the company would have to make some kind of arrangment with her to deduct the money from salary mnothly, usual practice is to take it back over the same period of time it took to overpay it, but that is good practice not law.

I am not aware of any cut off point after which she can keep the money, and I think they can even puruse it if she leaves.

I would definately check with CAB and then she can decide what to do. If she is still being overpaid there could be an awful lot to pay back if they do ever realise.

\law of estoppel (sp) might apply - basically if she is worse off to pay it back than if the company had never paid it in the first place, they can't have it back. This certainly applied when my boss said he4 had overpaid my maternity pay (which he hadn't anyway, the tightwad!) the CAB said the Law of Estoppel meant it was basically his problem not mine.

Her contract of employment is legally binding, i.e. neither party can alter it without the other's consent. However, the courts can take into account practice. This means that if a particular term of the contract has been carried out in a certain way over a period of time (provided it isn't to the detriment of the employee), then that term might be deemed to have been changed by consent.

I think the company would be hard-pressed to try to claim that money back on the basis that it was an error. If it had been one or two months' salary, perhaps, but not over a period of 5 years.

They might, however, reduce her salary now to the lower amount (presumably taking into account any payrises over the 5 years).

my dp is a civil servant on mat leave.

just recently her employers told her she has been overpaid £100 per month for the last 2 years. They expected her to pay it back immediately. There is small print on her payslips saying that it is up to the employee to ensure they are being paid the correct amount or something.

Naturally she is objecting. The situation is still ongoing. She's got her boss involved and is seeking advice with union etc.

So will follow this thread with interest. Will also post if there is any change with her.

Oh dear, this is all a bit of a mess He is probably going to be up in court over the whole incompetency thing I think. She'd better ring the CAB. I think she might be better off changing her hours when she goes back so they have to recalculate and hopefully won't notice what the last guy did. Hopfully they will just look at her hourly rate and work it out from there. She doesn't need this poor thing, she nearly died of Septicemia after her baby a few months ago. Thank you all very much for your help.

Ah, just seen Freckle's post which sounds better ADad, I will fill you in on what happens with this.

thanks!

Don't forget also that, if they have overpaid her, they have also overpaid tax and NI, so, if they try to recoup the money, they will have to ensure that she is no worse off in that regard.

That is awful aDad that they can just demand it. There really are some incompetent people around aren't there. Freckle, thank you, that is all very helpful. She is ringing tonight and we are going to go through all the figures and check them 100%. I guess if she does go back on the same hours that the new HR person will realise at that point what has happened...

check her contract as well for any clauses that mean she has to immediately pay back any overpayments. We have them in all of ours as a matter of course.

Fingers crossed for your friend! That's no small amount of money.

I shall make sure she is sitting down before I tell her all this

I worked for a large insurance company (naming no names but they're the 4th emergency service) and they overpaid a group of people for about a year. They demanded the money back, not immediately but over a period of time and one of the overpaid employees refused to pay it back. Unions etc were involved and after the person involved left the company the case was pursued in court. She lost on the basis that she should be aware of the money she received from the company on a monthly basis and had to pay it back.