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Returned on restricted hours but company say I was paid full rate in error: can they make me repay them?
After returning back to work after a stroke under direction from mine and the company doctor to no more than a 25 hour week my company returned me on to full salary which I have been told recently is standard procedure. Now they are saying that I have been overpaid and they want me to pay back some of the overpayment. They say it is partly their fault and partly mine. Ido not agree as both doctors and myself told them that I was returning on restricted hours. The job I do has not suffered since I have been back.
It is dependent upon the terms of your contract. I assume that you are contracted to work certain hours and that as you have worked less than this amount your employer believes that you have been overpaid. I note that you believe that it is standard procedure for people working reduced hours to remain on full pay. Whether this is the case depends on the terms of your employment.
If your employer is correct and you have been overpaid then the money has been paid to you under a mistake of fact. The general rule is that money paid under a mistake of fact should be repaid unless the recipient of the money has acted to their detriment as a result, for example entered into some financial obligation that they would not have done had they not received the additional money.
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