if someone takes all their holiday pay early in the year then leaves their job, do they need to pay it back?

[ssd]

the person has been there 4 years, no contract or written statement or handbook.

they left work over a disagreement and didnt give any notice

now work is demanding the holiday overpayment back, to be paid in 7 days, the holidays were authorised by manager and paid thru payroll as normal

also last working weeks pay was not paid to the person in lieu of holiday overpayment

is this legal when there is no contract or anything like that in place?

Employers don't need consent to make deductions where the amount owing is an overpayment of wages. However having taken too much holiday doesn't count as an overpayment of wages so consent is required if an employer wants to make a deduction from final salary for this reason.

Sounds like they have made an unlawful deduction from her salary. I think they wouldn't pursue her for the rest anyway as without a written contract saying she was only entitled to X amount of holiday or anything in writing at all making clear that holiday taken over accrued amounts will be owing, it wouldn't be very straightforward them proving she definitely owes them a set amount. Writing her threatening letters is easy, but if it came to having to demonstrate to a court that she owed them the money, and they had nothing in writing, that's a different story.

This type of thing is why employers who avoid giving contracts to employees are bonkers. Contracts often give employers just as much protection and assistance as the employees, who mostly get theirs from statutory requirements anyway.

If they are failing to meet basic employment law requirements like providing a written statement of particulars of employment, and are commercially stupid enough not to realise the benefit of protecting themselves in terms of deductions clauses and holiday overpayment rules, I have little sympathy and wouldn't be rushing to pay it back if I were her.

Exactly flowery holiday is a benefit not wage.

thanks so much flowery, thats exactly what I wanted to know

I left my last job at the end of March. At that time I'd taken 3.5 days more leave than I had accrued. I was informed and it was deducted from my final salary.

They need to call ACAS

There has been some poor advice in this thread. I'm an employment lawyer.

As flowery indicated, unless the employer has a contractual right to deduct the excess holiday pay then they aren't permitted to do it. So your friend is under no legal obligation whatsoever to pay it back. It's the employers fault for not writing it into their contracts actually for not having them at all

thank you