Any legal advice on an overpaid salary issue?

[timbob]

Long story short, I left my last job at the end of July to go teacher training, the council didn't terminate my contract properly, and they carried on paying me. Due to a mental workload whilst teacher training, I didn't really check my account for a few months, and didn't discover that until Nov. In the end, they paid three months salary (over £2000). This money cleared my overdraft and went on auto payments to my credit card before I realised - so I've got nothing to show for it.

I pointed the error out, and they sent me a letter asking me to write a cheque for the whole amount in one go.

I've done some sums, and even though I'm paying only £50 a month to my parents for rent (I'm bunking at home to complete my training), my outgoings are £950+ a month, and income of ~£1000 a month. I have a 3 month period (July/August/Sept) between the end of my training and the expected first payday of my next teaching job I don't have yet where I will have no incoming wage.

I've been trying to get legal advice - the Citizens Advice Bureau are bloody useless... they're only open 9:30-12:30 weekdays, and one day they man the shop, the next day they man the phones... so you can't get through on the phones if it's a shop day, and you could turn up at the office and have to call on your mobile from the waiting room if it's a phones day (AAAAARGHH!!!!!)

I got put onto Community Legal Advice, and phoned them up, but I ran through their eligibility check which involved a long list of questions about benefits or income support, and after running through those (and answering "no" to all of them) they told me I wasn't eligible for free advice (AAAAARGHH!!!!!!!!!)

The best they could do was point me to a local solicitor, who would offer an initial half price consultation at £125, but if I wanted to follow through and get them to actually do anything, I'd need to pay the full price of £250 for another full appointment - this is obviously out of my price range.

Are there any PHers who have any insight into the situation who might be willing to give me some idea of where I stand?

Thanks chaps!

[davepoth]

You owe them the money, simple as that. There's precious little point talking to a solicitor about it. I'd suggest ringing around for a bank loan (although I realise this may be difficult given your financial circumstances) but it's much cheaper than an overdraft.

[Wings]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

+Sound advice!

I myself had a similar situation, where a charitable organisation continued to make rental payments on a property they had vacated some three months earlier. The charity had refused to appear at the end of their tenancy, for the closure inventory to be carried out, the vandalism found being obvious for their absence. Their Bank, a well known high street bank, contacted me to say he overpayments were down to an administration error on their part, threaten me with legal action if I did not refund the monies. Although the Bank have not taken legal action against me, I am quite certain that where a mistake/overpayment has been made, then the receiver of that overpayment, is legally obliged to refund that money.

In your case unless you can arrange a low cost interest loan, perhaps by credit card, then you should approach the Council and make a reasonable offer to repay the monies over a set period of time. Once you make such an offer, then any subsequent legal action implemented against you by the Council, will receive a sympathetic outcome from the courts.

[mad4amanda]

Must be something about education authorities! My wife had this when she moved LEA overpaid and not noticed for 3 months we offered £100 per month and it was accepted interest free!

[Rude-boy]

Moral of the story.

Pick a day, any day, of the month and always log on to your account on or about that date every month. When money was tighter I'd know to within a pound or two what was in all accounts I held. These days I don't have to be quite so sure but still have a bloody good idea and certainly check every month what's gone in and what out. Takes a whole 2 minutes and if I'm filling out my accounts takes no more than 30 whist half watching TV.

Or is it wait till you see extra funds come in, shift to another place a x%, fess up after a few months and then pay back at £100 over 2 years

Edited by Rude-boy on Monday 7th February 19:54

[timbob]

Rude-boy said:

Moral of the story.

Pick a day, any day, of the month and always log on to you account on or about that date every month. When money was tighter I'd know to within a pound or two what was in all accounts I held. These days I don't have to be quite so sure but still have a bloody good idea and certainly check every month what's gone in and what out. Takes a whole 2 minutes and if I'm filling out my accounts takes no more than 30 whist half watching TV.

Good moral. I usually do, it must be said, but it fell by the wayside with the crazy workload of teacher training. I didn't even watch TV for 3 months!

Writing to offer £100 a month once I'm in properly paid teaching employment sounds like a good plan - I always knew I would have to pay it back, but wasn't sure how I'd go about it with my current incomings and outgoings.

[limpsfield]

timbob said:

translated this sounded like: it is everyone's fault but mine

[timbob]

limpsfield said:

Where have I said that?

I fully acknowledge I will need to pay the money back, and I should have noticed it sooner. But they've asked for it in one fell swoop - £2000 all at once. I couldn't get hold of any advice on the matter so asked here.

[Stevenj214]

Pay all of your outgoings with your credit card for 2 months and pay them back.

[anonymous-user]

Specifically this is a 'mistake in fact' with regard to an overpayment made and as such is normally repayable unless you can show that
1) You did not contribute to the mistake (incorrect details supplied)
2) You could reasonably/in good faith have believed the money was yours (smaller amounts over a long period rather than large amounts in a short period
3) 'Your position has changed', as due to no.2 you have spent the money as part of your bugdet on day to day expenses (eg not a car/holiday etc)

If you can prove the above the employer is 'estopped' from reclaiming - this is not a hard test, but a guide. (Estoppel is a complex thingy)

From what you have said, No.2 does not apply at all and No.3 only partially, so you will have to repay.

The minimum period for repayment should be the period the original mis-payment occurred over, but you should be able to negotiate a longer period that would be equitable to both parties

[scirocco265]

Unfortunately, instances such as this are giverned by the 1996 Theft Act (as amended) Section 2, pertaining to dishonestly retaining a wrongful credit, i.e. "the credit is wrongful, have kept it despite the fact that the person has no right or interest and have dishonestly failed to take such steps as are reasonable to secure that the credit is cancelled".

I would advise writing a without predujice letter setting out a fair repayment schedule. Let us know how you get on.

[anonymous-user]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Agreed as I said below

wsurfa said:

Specifically this is a 'mistake in fact' with regard to an overpayment made and as such is normally repayable unless you can show that
1) You did not contribute to the mistake (incorrect details supplied)
2) You could reasonably/in good faith have believed the money was yours (smaller amounts over a long period rather than large amounts in a short period
3) 'Your position has changed', as due to no.2 you have spent the money as part of your bugdet on day to day expenses (eg not a car/holiday etc)

If you can prove the above the employer is 'estopped' from reclaiming - this is not a hard test, but a guide. (Estoppel is a complex thingy)

From what you have said, No.2 does not apply at all and No.3 only partially, so you will have to repay.

The minimum period for repayment should be the period the original mis-payment occurred over, but you should be able to negotiate a longer period that would be equitable to both parties

And off topic whilst I'd agree on a DDJ's perspective, ETs can be entertainingly perverse - see Keenan vs Barclays, 80% salary increase not seen by employee as an error.....

[Countdown]

Happens all too often in Public Sector I'm afraid - mainly because the people who make the mistake (usually HR in my experience) don't get their backsides kicked.

OP - as others have suggested make them a reasonable offer to repay. They will only take you to Court if they absolutely have to.

One of the things we started doing in my old job was referring these to Debt Collection firms - they would charge 25% of any monies recovered which would work out cheaper than using in-house staff to take them to Court. Turned out to be quite cost effective

[timbob]

I've written a letter offering repayment at an affordable (to me, at the moment) rate. I knew I was going to have to repay it, that much was obvious - I'd be pissed off if I heard of someone trying to wangle out of repaying and getting "free" money. My issue was that they'd sent me a reasonably wordy and scary letter demanding an instant payment of well over £2000. I don't have even 5% of that available in my current account...

As for the "yeah, right" responses to me not noticing - I'm not bothered if you believe me or not, it's quite immaterial. Fact is I noticed when I did, told my old boss the very next morning and had the continuing payments stopped. I'd only have been penalising myself to notice it earlier and NOT report it, and if I wanted to try and "steal" the money, I'd not have bothered reporting it at all, and hoped they didn't notice.

Thanks for all the constructive input chaps

[TurricanII]

Same happened to my ma, who was a public sector worker. After they demanded payment in full following their mistake a visit to the union lawyer resulted in a fair repayment schedule.

They will pursue it because it is the public sector and they have to keep themselves in a job.

Plus you are much easier to deal with than the scumbags who go bust owing £££££££ to the tax man and their suppliers, only to start up again immediately and walk away from the debt.