Hotel receptionist awarded four-figure payout after boss withheld tips and wages

A hotel receptionist has been awarded a four-figure payout from her former employer after a director told her tips were “not my problem”.

Iona-Zoita Simon took the owner of Portsonachan Hotel beside Loch Awe to an employment tribunal, where she was awarded £1,151.60 for unlawful deductions from her wages between February and December 2025.

Employment judge Sandy Kemp found that hotel owner Liz Parker, who once appeared on Channel 4 show Four in a Bed, had not given the employee any written details of her employment or refunded pension contributions.

It was found that customer tips were placed in a jar in the manager’s office and not distributed among workers, but were instead “utilised by the respondent to make payments”.

When Ms Simon raised concerns about a lack of cash tips, she was told by Parker that tips were “not her problem”, adding, “I don’t have anything to do with tips, and I will tell HMRC that no staff received tips as they are taxable”.

The receptionist had previously received cash tips of £25 and £40 in March and April of 2025, but the payments stopped after the head chef, who had handled the tips, left the business.

Judge Kemp found that Parker had provided no written records of tips or receipts showing that Ms Simon had been refunded pension contributions in cash, as the hotel owner argued.

He said: “In my view, in light of the terms of the Act as amended by the 2023 Act and the definition of wages found in section 27 of the Act, tips are wages. Not to pay tips which ought to have been distributed amongst workers is therefore an unauthorised deduction from wages.”

The judge awarded £200 for unpaid tips from April to November 2025, but agreed that the true sum owed was “likely to have been materially higher” and said he did not have “a sufficient evidential base to make any further award”.

The tribunal also heard that Ms Simon had been told by Parker that her first week’s pay would be made on termination of her employment, but it was never paid when her employment ended in December 2025.

The judge awarded £428.30 for unpaid annual leave, £428.30 for an unpaid week’s wages at the start of her employment, and £95 for pension contributions deducted from her pay but never refunded after she opted out of the scheme.

It was concluded: “The documenting of employment, and managing the issues that arose, appears to have been at best inadequate, and the respondent may wish to consider what its duties are and how to fulfil them, either by researching matters or obtaining advice.”

The hotel was represented at the tribunal by a personal assistant to one of the company’s directors.

She argued that the former employee had not proved that she had not been paid for the sums she sought and provided the judge with two statements, adding that “she could only go on the basis of what she had been told”.