Unpaid expenses after leaving job.

[davtherav]

Hello Everyone!

I left my last dead-end, barely above minimum wage job as a field service engineer with a painfully unimaginative and mediore small company at the beginning of December. On my last day of employment with the company, I arranged with my line manager to return the company van and it's contents (customer stock, tools etc) to head office. Having returned everything and dealt with the HR people and paperwork I walked to the railway station, purchased a ticket and travelled the 80 miles back home.

I submitted my final business expenses, including the rail ticket, to my line manager a couple of days later, and he emailed to confirm that he had passed these to the admin team for processing. After over 6 weeks of chasing the admin team for reimbursement of these expenses and being ignored I have now finally been told that the company will not pay for my rail ticket. The explanation given by my line manager was that according to the admin team "transportation costs after returning a vehicle when leaving the business is not a claimable expense" and that he's sorry I wasn't made aware of this. I tried to argue that it was completely unreasonable to leave me out of pocket like this, but got absolutely nowhere.

Having read through my contract of employment and employee handbook, (a copy of which I signed at the start of my employment) I can find no reference to the admin team's excuse for not processing the rail ticket. It doesn't make any sense and I think the person responsible is just doing this because she doesn't like me and is trying to wind me up (it's working!). There are 3 poorly written and somewhat ambiguous pages in the employment manual relating to expenses, this is the only information I was ever provided with (see below post). To my untrained eye, the expenses policy seems to support my case that I can claim for rail travel, and indeed I successfully claimed the rail ticket when I went to collect the van in the first place.

It also says in the employee handbook that if I didn't return the company van when stipulated they can charge me £100 for every day it's overdue, plus another £200 charge to collect it themselves, so it's not as if I had a choice in the matter. Was I supposed to walk 80 miles home?

Can they do this? If I took them to small claims court, how could they defend their case?

Can anyone give me any advice on bring a claim in small claims court, or is there another approach I can take to get this resolved? I don't really know where to start.

Many thanks for your kind help!

[davtherav]

Here are the pages from my employee handbook relating to expenses. That's all there is! Nothing in there that says they won't pay rail travel on my last day (or whatever?). Ambiguously it lists rail fares as both a "standard" business expenditure and also as a "non-standard" business expenditure (requiring prior authorisation from a line manager). In any case, my line manager submitted the expense claim to the admin team for processing which means he didn't have a problem with it. The part about company credit card doesn't apply since us lowly service engineers were not entrusted with one of those. Also the section relating to rail travel when you have a company vehicle also doesn't seem to apply since I'd given it back at that point. I can understand what excuse they have for not paying me?

[theberenger]

You'll need to wait for the other contributors to comment to understand the legal position, but I'll stick my head up above the parapet and say, from a layman's perspective, I'm inclined to agree with the stance of your former employer.

You had a van and tools loaned to you by the business so you could perform your job role. When you leave the company you are obliged to return both the van and the tools to them. On the basis that you no longer work for the business at this point, I can't see how they assume responsibility for getting you back to your home again.

Moreover, in many employment contracts I've seen or signed, it makes it quite clear that it's always my responsibility (and my cost) to make sure I can get to and from my place of work.

In my simplistic view, the only way I could imagine you may have a case to demand reimbursement for your ticket, would be if you were still working notice (and therefore still legally in their employment) when this happened. If your contract entitles you to transport, and they've deprived you of that by demanding it back before your employment legally ends, then maybe you've got a point.

[atticus]

I tend to agree. What happened when you were provided the van?

[davtherav]

I tend to agree. What happened when you were provided the van?

Do you mean, what happened when I picked the van up?

I got the train up to head office when I picked the van up when I started the job and they paid my rail fare on expenses.

[davtherav]

You'll need to wait for the other contributors to comment to understand the legal position, but I'll stick my head up above the parapet and say, from a layman's perspective, I'm inclined to agree with the stance of your former employer.

You had a van and tools loaned to you by the business so you could perform your job role. When you leave the company you are obliged to return both the van and the tools to them. On the basis that you no longer work for the business at this point, I can't see how they assume responsibility for getting you back to your home again.

Moreover, in many employment contracts I've seen or signed, it makes it quite clear that it's always my responsibility (and my cost) to make sure I can get to and from my place of work.

In my simplistic view, the only way I could imagine you may have a case to demand reimbursement for your ticket, would be if you were still working notice (and therefore still legally in their employment) when this happened. If your contract entitles you to transport, and they've deprived you of that by demanding it back before your employment legally ends, then maybe you've got a point.

I see your point, about no longer working for the company - however there was nothing in my contract to say that I was responsible for my travel cost or getting myself to and from the office. What it did say was that a company van was supplied for business travel. On a normal day, travel was paid as part of my working hours. It was a remote job travelling to customers all over the country and the company van and fuel card was supplied for that purpose. I returned the van during my normal working hours.

The expenses policy seems to suggest I could claim rail fares on expenses does it not?

[atticus]

You can surely cite the precedent of the arrangement when you started the job.

[ULA]

The issue that you have on reading what you have said and the attached Expenses document is that on the flip side to your statement in post #2 it also does not say anything in relation to paying for your rail travel to home once you have returned your company van to company premises on termination. The only part that you may be able to use to support the claim is under the rail and tube clause and claim this was exceptional circumstances, i.e. you were returning a company van on termination at the request of the company. By any chance did you have prior line manager approval, I appreciate he signed it, I presume as part of an authorisation process for payment but did he pre-approve the cost?

[davtherav]

The issue that you have on reading what you have said and the attached Expenses document is that on the flip side to your statement in post #2 it also does not say anything in relation to paying for your rail travel to home once you have returned your company van to company premises on termination. The only part that you may be able to use to support the claim is under the rail and tube clause and claim this was exceptional circumstances, i.e. you were returning a company van on termination at the request of the company. By any chance did you have prior line manager approval, I appreciate he signed it, I presume as part of an authorisation process for payment but did he pre-approve the cost?

The clause you mentioned says "For employees WITH COMPANY VEHICLES the use of Rail must be in exceptional circumstances only..." - I'd already given the van back so that doesn't apply to me.

Then below that it says rail fares are a "standard expense" which DO NOT require authorisation.
Then below that it says rail fares are a "non-standard expense" which DO require authorisation.
It's completely ambiguous and was obviously written by an idiot in a hurry.

In any case, my line manager did authorise it.

As others have said above, the real issue is whether or not they are obliged to pay up, given that I had in fact "left the business" and was on my way home. Just seems incredibly petty of them to skank me out of £60. The poxy job paid £11 an hour and they took every opportunity to try and underpay, exploit or otherwise fleece me in one way or another. I probably worked an extra 5-10 hours a week unpaid, it was like 65-70 hours and over 1000 miles of driving every week. Probably nothing I can do about it though, you live and learn!

[davtherav]

You can surely cite the precedent of the arrangement when you started the job.

Thanks for the reply! Do you think that would actually work? I am tempted to make a court claim, but if I lost I assume I would be on the hook for all of their expenses? I don't know the first thing about how small-claims works, never done it before, but I'm assuming it's risky....?

[ULA]

I am not the small claims expert here on the forum my area is employment. However for £60 it would be small claims via MoneyClaim Online and there would be a fee of £35 for making the claim. Current times I believe for a claim to progress is upwards of a year due to the backlog.

You would have to prove there was an obligation/contractual agreement to pay the fare which they did not comply with.

[efpom]

I would argue that the location of your place of employment was your residential address. That on the last day of your employment you were instructed to attend the firm's head office and that you are entitled to be paid the costs of returning to your place of employment, because you were still employed until the end of that day.

If that is right it's an employment tribunal - ET claim, if the firm still refuses to pay up. Watch the time limits for making such a claim to the ET

[davtherav]

I would argue that the location of your place of employment was your residential address. That on the last day of your employment you were instructed to attend the firm's head office and that you are entitled to be paid the costs of returning to your place of employment, because you were still employed until the end of that day.

If that is right it's an employment tribunal - ET claim, if the firm still refuses to pay up. Watch the time limits for making such a claim to the ET

Thanks for the advice

[davtherav]

I tried ACAS early reconciliation. My employer responded saying that since I left the office at 5pm, and my working day ended at 9:30pm I actually owed them money because I finished early!! They refused to refund me for my rail ticket. This is nonsensical as travel was always included in my working hours for the whole 6 months I worked at the company. Also, I was paid a salary, not by the hour. Can anyone give me some pointers on how to fill out the ET1 form? I just need some help structuring this argument and I have no idea where to start.

[ULA]

I presume you are ok completing section 1-7 of the ET1 form. Section 8.1 you are ticking the box " I am owed" then you need to tick the box "other payments". You then need to move to section 8.2 and set out why you believe you should be paid your train travel back home after you returned your company vehicle. You may want to use the argument set out by efpom if you can prove that your contract of employment stated that your work location was in fact your home address. It is certainly not going to be a long explanation to support your claim in 8.2

9.1 is ticking the box "Compensation only" and at box 9.2 It will be setting out the cost of the ticket.

The rest of the form should be straight forward.

Hope that helps.