maternity allowance and pay (2025)

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mightymo24 Posts: 2 Newbie

6 September 2011 at 8:11AM in

hello,

just wondered if maybe i was being paid too much, i had my baby in may this year and am now on maternity leave until dec but my work are paying me my pay at the end of every month, i'm also getting maternity allowance paid into my bank but its all scattered all over the place i.e not the same every month and sometimes quite a lot.
will be in touch with work and pension soon i really don't know whether i'm entitled to this but then if it was they'd eventually come back looking for it to be paid back so wouldn't be great anyway.

any help appreciated

ker x

claireandrichard Posts: 141 Forumite

6 September 2011 at 8:37AM

You should still be getting your pay slips so this should tell you how much you should be receiving. I am currently on mat leave as well and I receive my maternity pay each month in one go. It is broken down on my pay slip into optional maternity pay (the bit that my employer pays) and statutory maternity pay. These are calculated weekly so that explains why chathe amounts nge as it will depend on how many weeks there are in the month, in my case a week will run from the first day I took maternity leave, Saturday as my last working day was Friday.
Are you being paid SMP as this may affect your maternity allowance, I would contact HM revenue and customs to check. You don't want to find out that you need to pay all 9 months worth back in Decemeber.
karenx Posts: 4,988 Forumite

6 September 2011 at 8:56AM

Reason for getting maternity allowance is if you arent eligable for maternity pay through your employer. Im guessing you are getting maternity pay and allowance too. So you will have to contact both departments as one of them has made an error so you will have to pay one of them back
chrisbur Posts: 4,215 Forumite

6 September 2011 at 9:03AM

Did your employer give you a form SMP1 and return your MatB1 certificate. This is the form you would use to claim maternity allowance.
mightymo24 Posts: 2 Newbie

6 September 2011 at 9:20AM

all the smp1 and matb1 certificate were filled in and sent to dow&p they keep returning my application asking to fill things in and pay etc i returned the application about 3 times each time with the smp1 and matb1 form i then got a letter saying they'd backdate it cause my final returned application was a good bit into my maternity leave but it just feels unlikely that they would give me a big backdate and still get quite a bit monthly from them and still get my monthly pay from work.
i do suspect thrres been an error somewhere along the way and wouldn't be much fun come dec they ask me to pay it back cause i think im prob getting getting the equivilent of double my usual pay a month.
unless its because i worked upto a month before my baby was due.
DaisyFlower Posts: 2,677 Forumite

6 September 2011 at 11:00AM

I wouldnt wait until Dec to tell your work, just pay back what they have paid you now in error.
If you've had a few months pay from them already, be prepared if they ask why its taken you 3-4 months to tell them as you knew your maternity pay was coming in the form of MA from elsewhere so they could take further action.
chrisbur Posts: 4,215 Forumite

6 September 2011 at 12:05PM

Looks like your employer may have been paying you your monthly salary each month automaticly. Some payrolls are set up to pay a fixed amount every month unless it is over-ridden by payroll.
As DaisyFlower says you need to talk to your payroll dept. about this.