I'm in England, UK.
I was laid off form my company with immediate effect a week ago, where they're paying me in leiu for the next three months as per my contract. The problem is that they said I had to immediately give back the macbook pro I was issued, or it would be taken out of the final payment (they're planning on lumping all those 3 months payment into the next pay date in the beginning of May).
The issue is that I worked remotely on the other end of the country so they issued a delivery company to collect the equipment a few days after my termination, but my ex employer did not give me the necessary shipping labels until 5-6 hours after the collection had already occurred. I had no knowledge whatsoever that I had to apply labels until it was too late, and the delivery company had mistakenly used an old label on the box so it was sent to my old house, and thankfully my old landlord has notified me and is keeping it safe for now.
I've been on the phone non-stop to the delivery company to get it redelivered correctly to my workplace, as I'm aware my workplace needs the laptop back 'before my final payment' as I recall this was said to me in my last meeting. The issue is that the delivery company apparently needs to investigate what went wrong before they can arrange to pick this up and deliver it again, and I'm worried sick I'm potentially losing thousands, just because of this mistake which will delay the laptop being delivered correctly.
My question is, does my workplace have a right to take the value of the laptop out of my final pay because I wasn't provided the correct shipping labels by my employer until it was already collected? I'm doing everything I can to get this back to the office ASAP, but I feel powerless now as I have to wait for the delivery company to correct the delivery themselves, and I'm giving regular updates to the employer but have heard nothing in response from the time the shipping labels were sent to me.
I've checked my contract and handbook where it states: '(company) reserves the right to make a deduction from your final payment for any sums that are due at your
time of leaving.'
And also in the section referring to payment in lieu of notice: 'your date of termination will be your last day of work with the Company, and all property belonging to the Company should be returned on this day.'
I would greatly appreciate any advice anyone could offer me, and thank you in advance.