Taking full holiday allowance can be difficult for many overworked employees. One busy estate manager accumulated 827 days of unused leave over 25 years.
Mossadek Ageli is 74 years old. He built up more than three years of holiday backlog worth about £392,000 after being repeatedly denied the chance to take annual leave because the business was short staffed.
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An employment tribunal has now awarded Ageli the money for the untaken leave as well as another £105,000 in compensation. He won an unfair dismissal case at an employment tribunal in Watford against Sabtina which is a property management company.
The hearing was told that Ageli joined the business in 1987. The company was a wholly owned subsidiary of the Libyan Foreign Investment Company. He initially worked as deputy managing director but then became commercial manager. He worked at offices in London and Milton Keynes.
His initial annual holiday allowance was 30 days. Between 1987 and 1989 Ageli took no holiday leave because only he and his personal assistant were full-time employees. The tribunal was told that both needed to be working constantly for the company to function.
It also emerged that between 1988 and 1996 the company directors refused Ageli’s requests for 200 holiday leave days. By the end of that period his annual holiday entitlement was raised from 30 days to 45 days.
Two years later Ageli realized that he would not be able to take holiday so he agreed with the directors that he would be paid for them. He told the tribunal that after years of doing this it was agreed that there was no need to send any future paperwork for approval or denial & he simply kept a record of his holiday entitlement.
The property manager went on to explain that the company did not offer a pension scheme. He and his personal assistant were saving the holidays they could not have for when needed or at retirement.
It emerged in evidence that in both 2001 and 2004 Ageli was paid £15000 in lieu of holiday. This showed that the deal was in place but it was agreed that he would not need to take the money each year as it would roll over. That agreement was said to have been in place for decades.
But in 2022 the board of directors was replaced & a new team demanded documentation to prove that the deal had been agreed. They were also said to have slowly removed duties from him.
In 2024 Ageli was sacked for alleged gross misconduct which he disputed. He was also told that he would not be paid for the 827 unpaid holiday days he had accrued since 1998.
After suing the company a judge backed Ageli’s claim and ordered the company to pay the full amount of holiday pay owed as well as compensation for unfair dismissal. Ruling that he had been mistreated over his holiday pay the judge George Alliott said that Sabtina did not have a genuine belief that Ageli had committed gross misconduct.
