Holiday pay entitlement after changing jobs

[TiN]

Ello,

Might be a little late now, but it's been biting at me, so I thought that I'd see if anyone could shed a little light on the situation.

I changed jobs back in October 2006, so I was 9 months into my second year of employment with the company, which should equate to 15 days of holiday entitlement "earned". I had taken a few of those days off, but definately not all of them...but when I confronted the company over this, I was told that I had apparently used up all of my entitlement...

I disputed this, and their next response was that my employment record was "closed", and so they didn't have access to data to calculate anything...so one of the directors (it's only a small company) offered me cash from his own pocket as a gesture of goodwill.

Now - although the money would be nice, that's not my main aim - I want to be able to call bullshit on the chicken-shit director that is hiding behind his books.

Is there anything I can do? If not, then fine, I can close the books that way too, but I just need to know.

Cheers,
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TiN
dotgems.net

[Sparks!]

Most businesses will probably use software like, or, Sage.. when you close an employee you can still view the records so the fact they are saying they can't check your record is more than likely bull shit.

When you leave a company you are entitled to outstanding holiday paid up front. Unless your contract says you're not anyway..

So you should be entitled to every day you have remaining.

I don't know this fully, but this is how it works in our company so hope it helps.
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Current Toys: 06 Yamaha WR250F | Nissan 350Z GT | Tech 4 Homes

[TiN]

Yeah, thanks Sparks - I'm aware of what it says in the contract, but there's not specific (I was pretty much their first "proper" employee...they had people on the books before, but I was the first to get a proper contract etc, so it was a bit of a bodge)...but yes, I know that I'm definately entitled to be renumerated.

I guess what I'm after are any specific regulations/legislations on the time that I have to get my money...i.e. is there anything that "allows" companies to turn their backs legally if I don't confront them within, say, a month of the termination of my contract...etc...

Cheers,
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TiN
dotgems.net

[Paivi]

Sounds like something Babyyam would know about. Failing that, Citizens Advice Bureau.

Your records cannot be closed, certainly not until the end of the tax year in April, so they're trying to bullshit you. And, by doing this, they are proving that you're right and they owe you. By all accounts, you're owed close to three weeks' salary.

[yambabe]

Couple of points to note here, firstly all employers are required to maintain adequate Holiday Pay records by law (Working Time Regulations) and as has already been pointed out the current tax year doesn't end until April so saying your pay record has been "closed" is indeed bullshit. How was your pay calculated? Manually or on software? As if it was on software someone may well have had to override the holiday pay entitlement calculator that most of the commonly-used programmes use to be able to issue you with a P45, in other words they might not actually have the correct figure cos they have had to manually set it to NIL...........

Secondly, when does the Company holiday period actually start according to your contract? It's not necesarily the start of the calendar year, it could be the start of the tax year, the start of the company accounting period or even the anniversary of you starting the employment. This is important. The WTR do not allow for untaken holiday pay from a previous period to be carried over to the next period, and they expressly forbid it to be paid. So if the holiday year only started in September say and you left in October you might not have as much accrued as you thought.

Thirdly your employer might have done this deliberately, to make use of a small loophole in the rules relating to taxation of pay made after leaving. If he can show that paying you now (out of his own pocket or from the company, either would have the same result) was actually damages to compensate you for a breach of contract (said breach being that he didn't pay your final holiday pay) then providing it is less than £30k that payment comes to you free of tax and he doesn't have to pay employers NI on it either, if this is the case then take the money and congratulate him on having a savvy accountant from me!

Rather than the Citizens Advice Bureau, the best people to talk to for advice on stuff like this is usually ACAS cos if you do have a case that is likely to go to Tribunal they will talk you through the procedures and often represent you for free.
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Sod falling in love, I wanna fall in chocolate.

[TiN]

Thanks Paivi and Babyam, the information was interesting.

Babyam - hmm, I could see possible complications (working against my favour) following your comments. The company changed name (from one Ltd to another) in October 2005. At the time, I had 10 days left from the start of my employment in Jan 2005. A week of this had to be set aside for the Christmas holidays.

At the period of the company "changing over", I was asked by one of the directors whether I wanted to take the holiday from October to October, or just use up my holiday "as normal", so from Jan 2006, I would have 15 days of holida until October 2006. I hope that makes sense :s. This was all verbal, however.

The pay is all done via Sage, I think, and money transferred via BACS on the first working day of each month.

In terms of the loophole thing - I have emails stating that the payment is purely a gesture of goodwill from the pocket of one of the directors. It's kinda a good-cop bad-cop vibe from the company directors - one is the approachable "nice guy" (genuine, as far as I can tell), whereas the other one isn't good with human relations at all, and prefers to let other things speak for him.

The ACAS site doesn't seem to be working properly right now, but I shall take a look at it later.

So I guess the next step is to get in touch with ACAS? Do they have an email service, or does it all have to be done via meetings or phone? I would prefer meeting, but just don't have the time...

Cheers,
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TiN
dotgems.net

[Paivi]