Overworked estate manager wins £400,000 payout for 827 days of untaken holiday

A property manager has been awarded almost £400,000 in damages by the employment tribunal after accumulating a staggering 827 unpaid holiday days over 25 years.

Mossadek ‘Moss’ Ageli, who worked at the Libyan-owned Sabtina Limited company, could not use his annual leave constantly due to operational demands.

Instead, an arrangement was made to compensate for these untaken days.

Watford Employment Tribunal ruled Mr Ageli was owed £392,000 for accrued holiday dating back to 1998.

This amount is in addition to £105,000 in damages arising from a successful unfair dismissal claim.

Mr. Ageli joined Sabtina Limited in 1987; He initially served as deputy managing director and then as commercial manager, operating from offices in London and Milton Keynes.

In the early years, between 1987 and 1989, he took no holidays as he and his assistants were the only full-time staff required for the operation of the company.

Directors were denied 200 vacation days between 1988 and 1996.

The right to annual leave increased from 30 days to 45 days in 1996. By 1998, realizing the continuing difficulty of obtaining time off, Mr. Ageli and the company formalized an agreement to pay him for his untaken vacation.

He told the court: “When it became almost the norm that it was difficult to take holidays, I wrote a letter to the managing director, who was based overseas. [Sabtina]He was also the general manager of the parent company in Libya.

“I requested that I be paid when necessary instead of unused leaves due to the company’s conditions. The general manager agreed and signed the document.

“After years of doing this it was agreed that there was no need to submit any paperwork for approval or rejection in the future and I simply kept track of my holiday entitlement.”

He explained how he got permission to deal with the company owners and did not go behind their backs to secure payments, even though it was within his authority.

He said: “[Sabtina] There is no retirement plan for employees, and both my PA and I were accumulating vacations we couldn’t use when needed or in retirement.

“For over 20 years I was the company’s sole signatory and could sign off on payments for both me and my PA every year we didn’t have holidays.

“However, even though it was within my mandate to do so, I did not do so. I was confident that I would receive these payments.”

In both 2001 and 2004 he was paid £15,000 in lieu of holidays, indicating that the agreement was indeed in place, although it was agreed that he would not need to take the money as he would roll it over each year.

This agreement had been in place for decades, with Mr Ageli giving up holidays for extra pay, but the board was replaced in May 2022.

These new managers demanded documents from the manager and gradually began to remove his duties until he no longer had any duties in the company, even though he was still an employee.

In March 2024, he received an email informing him that he had been fired for gross misconduct; The manager claimed that he had previously spoken to Mr Ageli about his behavior but that the situation had not been corrected.

Mr. Ageli immediately said that this was not true and that he was not even allowed to appeal the decision.

He said: “I was shocked when I received your email. I know nothing about the allegations you have made against me and I would like to point out that you have not given me any details about it.”

“I would also like to point out that you did not give me any right of appeal; if you had, I would have objected to my dismissal on the grounds that your decision had no justification.”

He was also informed that he would not be paid for the 827 unpaid holiday days he had accumulated since 1998, which would total £392,000.

The dismissal was upheld and Mr Ageli took Sabtina to an employment tribunal in Watford; where Labor Judge George Alliott accepted that he had been mistreated by the withholding of holiday pay.

The court awarded the company a total of £91,490 in damages for unfair dismissal and £14,070 in basic damages, in addition to the full holiday pay owed.

The judge said: “I find that agreement was reached between them. [Mr Ageli] And [Sabtina] He said that unused leaves will be recorded from the moment of employment and unused rights will be carried forward every year.

“I found that an agreement was reached between them [Mr Ageli] And [Sabtina] Vacation pay will be paid to him when needed or at the end of his work.

“I found this [Sabtina] I had no real belief in it. [Mr Ageli] He had committed great misconduct.

“I found this [Sabtina] did not conduct a reasonable investigation and did not have reasonable grounds to conclude that: [Mr Ageli] He had committed great misconduct.

“I found this because [Sabtina] unwilling or unable to provide [Mr Ageli] He actually explained the reasons for his dismissal shortly after he requested it.

“I found this [Mr Ageli’s] “The dismissal was clearly procedurally unfair as he was not informed of the charges against him, was not informed of the evidence against him, was not given the opportunity to represent himself at the disciplinary hearing, and was not given the right to appeal.”

Sabtina Ltd is a wholly owned subsidiary of the Libyan Foreign Investment Company (LAFICO), a subsidiary of the Libyan Investment Authority.