Employer Took Pension

[tylers]

can an employer take money from your pension that they think you owe them? They have told me I was overpaid and I appealed this but didn't hear anything.I retired 2 weeks after this. They now seem to have taken thousands from my gratuity..Can they do this?

[factor-fiction]

I think we need you to clarify exactly what the pension/gratuity payments were, how the salary over-payment occurred, whether they had already asked you to repay and why it doesn't seem to have come to light until just before you retired. As things stand the story sounds incomplete to me.
Without all the facts we can't be sure we can proper advice. If you can't tell us everything but genuinely believe ou have a civil case I suggest you contact a solicitor

[wolf63]

I will leave the legal side of recovery of the sum to the guys.

Have you received a final decision on your appeal disputing the overpaid wage? Are you disputing that you have been overpaid or the amount that has been overpaid?

Has your employer told you that the £10k that is 'missing' has been taken by them to repay this overpayment of wage?

Is it a large company or a small one - you would think that a large company would know what it is doing.

[FredPuli43]

R v Ghosh [1982] Q.B. 1053 and 75 Cr. App.R. 154, C.A. , Buenchico. That's what makes the circumstances you gave in your example, theft. It defines the test for dishonesty. But , if you are ever in those circumstances and act that way, I am sure somebody can get you bail !

[woofgang]

ha wolf, the NHS is one of the largest employers in the UK, and I worked for a big subdivision of it. My salary was wrong at least once a year and every month in the service i managed, there was at least one person who had been paid wrongly.

[wolf63]

woof - I spent almost 25 years working for DWP. When I became ill they awarded me my occupational pension and lump sum bute they still kept paying me wages. I had to pay it back.

maybe I was being hopeful

[tylers]

Factor, it is an immediate pension with a lump sum gratuity. The gratuity is increased with commutation thus lowering the immediate pension for 10 years. I maintain that they have the right to have a go at "wages" but not my pension. The bit I read if I recall was based on the fact that wages were earned income therefore, could be hit but pensions were not. Oh if I could find that little nugget.

[woofgang]

The only thing that might change this is that you said it was a non contributory pension...therefore "technically" part of your salary package, therefore "technically" the same as salary.

[factor-fiction]

Okay - I'm not familiar with the term 'gratuity' - I know about the teachers' scheme but maybe these non-contrib govt schemes have some odd features.
Something doesn't seem right here but I think a solicitor is needed

[factor-fiction]

Was it a genuine retirement or was there some sort of ill health retirement, redundancy or compromise agreement?

[tylers]

Factor-genuine retirement. Thanks for your help.

[themas]

I think there is a difference here between criminal & civil law. Probably what has been done is not criminal, but does it breach civil law?

For example if a creditor wants to get money from a debtor he cann ot just ask the debtor's bank to give it to him. He has to go to Court, get a County Court Judgement & then follow the enforcement procedure to get it from the bank. I think the same should apply here IF the money has been taken from a pension fund rather than from something which is withheld salary. I'm not familiar with Civil Service pension schemes but in other occupational ones the pension fund is run by trustees & is quite separate from the employer. What is here called a gratuity is a lump sum commutation paid out of the pension fund - not out of the employer's money.

If the same applies here, I would say the employer has not acted correctly. A complaint or request for full explanation should be made.

[tylers]

Thanks Them, I was thinking the same. I will write to them and get an explanation. Within the civil service they dictate the pension then send the amount to a "paymaster" company to pay and manage. I suspect they have given them their idea of the amended amount.

[factor-fiction]

Maybe as they are the ones who made all the contributions into your pension pot there was something in the terms and conditions that allowed them to take back any money you owed them before they handed it over to the 'paymaster' company.
I recall there used to be some provision to withhold all the non-contributory pension for some civil servants in certain circumstances (eg if they were dismissed for fraud- which isn't what happened here of course)