Overpayment - can they reclaim?

[jlroberts15]

I was recently overpaid by �400 by my employer, however i was on holiday at the time and didn't realise. The day after i returned (which was three weeks later) they reclaimed it all back and now i have gone overdrawn and the bank have charged me. Can my employer do this and if so can they take it back all in one go; after all it was their mistake.

[BlueHeaven]

I suspect they can probably do as they like with their money, but perhaps you could explain the situation to your employer and maybe they will pay your bank charge? Worth a try.

[spanner7853]

<PRE>I work in a pyroll department and we get lots of overpaymens(which arent our fault) we have to inform the person of any recoveries before we even touch it. if your bank charged you for going overdrawn, your company may be liable to pay the expenses. I would check your contract though.</PRE>

[Stuart1948]

If they underpaid you, would you expect them to give you your money back !

And its not yours.

Be honorable.If they make up a redundancy list, guess who will be at the top.

Have an honest day.

Stuart

[welshangelxx]

This might help answer your question - i got it from the civil rights website -

Your employer can only make deductions from your wages in limited circumstances. They can deduct tax and national insurance (NI) and they can also make other deductions for which they have previously got your written consent or which are allowed in your contract of employment. (Different rules apply for shop workers).

An exception to the rule that consent is needed to make a deduction is where there has been an overpayment of wages (or some other payments, for example, expenses). In law, the employer can recover these through a deduction of your wages even if this is without your agreement. However, if your employer gave the impression that the wages were correct at the time they were paid, you did not know that you had been overpaid and you have spent the money (and to pay it back would put you in a worse financial position than if the overpayment had not been made) you should argue that you should not have to repay the money.