London Weighting

[fro]

I have worked for my company for 2 years and have just had a call from HR saying I have been getting London Weighting by mistake. I have not looked at any of my pay slips in detail so had not noticed. I have checked and I have been getting it since day one. They are now asking for me to repay �6000. Can they make me pay this back when it wasn't my fault?

Please help. .

[sweetpea...!]

I work for a London borough, when a colleague was overpaid they informed her and then made monthly deductions. The payslip is there for you to check - don't forget you could have been underpaid. As you'll no longer receive the LW - a double blow - try to negotiate a long paying off period.

[sweetpea...!]

Why aren't you entitled to LW? Which employees do receive it? Check with the union for your type of work in case the HR people are wrong.

[Postdog]

Yeah they have the right to claim it back, but not to get it all back in one go or cause you hardship in collecting it. You will need to mutually agree a time period.

[fro]

I don't work in London so shouldn't have it. What happens to the money I have paid into the pension, Tax, National Insurance and student loan repayments? They will all be wrong now.. I'm really worried.

[sweetpea...!]

Tell the Student Loan company that you were overpaid and are going to be receiving less money due to the loss of LW plus the repayments and ask them to refund the amount you overpaid them or a least reduce your payments - or stop them if you will now earn less than the minimum earnings level.

When your company makes the deductions they will automatically recalculate the NI and tax which you will have overpaid - you were paid too much so your tax and NI contributions were too high.

Your pension payments again would have been too high so you may get a refund - but if you are going to stay with the company any length of time additional payments won't hurt in the long run.

Don't forget if you were overpaid you overpaid tax, NI etc so if you give anything back so do they - you won't have to pay more on top.