Nikolay Nikolov v Craigatin House & Courtyard Limited — 2022

The claimant brought a single claim for holiday pay. At the final hearing he clarified that he was seeking payment for holiday accrued but not taken before the end of his employment on 4 July 2022. The parties agreed his start date was 21 September 2021, his effective date of termination was 4 July 2022, his hourly rate was £10, and his weekly hours varied between about 30 and 42.

The tribunal found that the respondent did not issue a written contract or statement of main terms, and that it closed the business for certain periods and required staff to take leave on specified dates. The central dispute was when the handwritten notice of holiday dates was given to the claimant. The tribunal accepted the claimant's evidence that he first received it when he returned to work in December 2021, rather than at interview or at the end of September. On that finding, the notice was not given far enough in advance for the closure period from 2 January to 11 February 2022 to count as paid leave under regulation 15(4)(a) of the Working Time Regulations 1998.

Because the respondent had not identified a separate leave year, the tribunal treated the claimant's leave year as beginning on 21 September 2021. It calculated that by 4 July 2022 he had accrued 23.5 days' leave, had taken 8 days of paid leave on the dates specified by the respondent, and therefore had 15.5 days accrued but untaken and unpaid. Using a daily rate of £70 derived from weekly pay of £420, the tribunal awarded £1,085 under regulation 30(5), subject to lawful deductions for tax and national insurance.