Cleaner who works 6 hours per week preferring cash in hand weekly - holiday pay? Is this a thing?

No. If she wants holiday pay she needs to join a cleaning agency. Bit bloody cheeky.

Also - the fact she isn’t taxed on her cash, that’s her holiday pay!

I have found that the less you charge for anything, the less appreciated you are. I am very lucky in that I think only once have I even been given a sob-story when it came to prices.

I did once have someone (a young lady) say "That's expensive!" when I gave her a quotation (and it wasn't expensive at all, it was exceptionally good value based on all her factors and that parking was going to be a likely issue). But she accepted it, and like an idiot (and despite my gut instinct & vast experience telling me to back away) I still went and did one clean for her...it was meant to be an ongoing fortnightly job, but she was a nightmare.

As I pointed out to her, from the moment she said "That's expensive!" I felt an overwhelming urge to get the f*k out and never come back ensure I provided her with excellent value, and had tried very hard to make a good start on her exceptionally filthy apartment refreshingly challenging home, but understood that it may not have pleased the ungrateful cow ticked all her boxes the first time round, and that I'd happily refund her fee as a matter of goodwill, because under no circumstances was I going back after all the f*king noise she made the obvious difficulties I was going to have when parking the car.

I bend over backwards for most customers, and if I've got it, they can have it. Except for my sanity. I'm not giving that up at any price.

I'm a cleaner and charge £15-£17.50 ph but I'm a mug. I supply all eco products, always work over my time as chatting is free and can't put up my prices as my elderly clients claim they're poor pensioners. I'd love the Xmas bonus you pay but I'm lucky if I get a candle. I'm adhd, am a perfectionist so work extremely hard but never seem to be appreciated. This woman sounds like she's a chancer and it's obviously paid off for her before. As she's cash in hand then she doesn't have a leg to stand on as I bet it's not declared.

I dunno...I never think of price as being a factor in this game, that is until someone contacts me and the first thing they want to know is how much do I charge.

If they said "I've never had a cleaner before and I've no idea what to expect to pay - can you help me?", well, that's different. "How much do you charge" equates to "I don't want to pay any more than I think I should", which makes me think "You can't afford me and even if you hire me you'd make me earn every penny, and more".

I like people who ask me if I have vacancies. That's always a good place to begin. One lady even went so far as to point out that she was a friend of Mrs So & So, who'd not long died...and she happened to wonder if I might just have a slot going begging. I liked her style, really I did. 😆

Thanks yeah I do understand that, we do other jobs that are charged per job but we have been told we are undercharging! Perhaps that's why we are so busy?! 😂 X

You mustn't fall into the trap of the elderly & what doesn't seem fair...I know it makes me sound utterly heartless and I'm as genuine as they come, but so many people I work for have so much money and so little time left to spend it. I only charge per-job rather than per-hour, but the least I charge now is £40 for any of it...I'd rather do more when I was there and go less often & for longer than I would turn up and charge just for the hour I was on site. Because as you say, we are very busy with work.

I've got to let some of my clients go, which I am not looking forward to, as come September I won't be able to work even half of the hours I do now...It's so hard, I've had some for over twenty years.

I pay my cleaner when we’re away - that is effectively their holiday pay

if you’re in london and you like your cleaner be very careful about not covering this request - they are very hard to come by now

Yeah we know, but sometimes we are only there about 45 mins so it evens out, we are really busy, some of our clients are elderly and really don't need much doing, doesn't feel right charging more. We do ok and work 7 days a week.

Do you know that at £15 per hour you're on less than minimum wage, by the time holiday pay and other employee benefits are factored in? And that's without all your costs and travel time.

Wow. You have just publicly admitted to being an accessory to fraud. I hope you're not involved in any other crimes as you'd be rubbish in a police interview!

Completely agree! I do the same, charge between £15-£20 and hour ( depending on the job) bring our own products etc. Work bloody hard but certainly don't expect holiday or sickness pay! That includes if the clients are away or unwell. It's called being self employed.

If "everyone" is paying her holiday pay, then she must be raking it in.

She’s trying it on. Mine asked too and I told her I don’t pay my hairdresser when I’m away and miss a cut so why would I pay her?

It’s completely up to the cleaner to be honest and declare her earnings.

what a cheek! That's a good rate, and I can't imagine she pays tax on it. You're well rid.

Self employed cleaner here.

I charge £20ph, that's fine. I supply all my own products with that and work effing hard.
Requesting holiday pay? CF. I personally would find a new cleaner, she has seen you as an easy target. If she is a good reliable cleaner she will have no problem with finding a new gig 😉

Other way around OP paid her cleaner to come in whilst she was away. Cleaner wanted to be paid when she wasn't cleaning as cleaner was away on holiday and OP at home

It's not illegal to be asked to be paid in cash. However she should declare her income however it is paid to HMRC.

If you are hiring a company, one of the reasons for doing so is because they "manage" the staff for you. Unless you are paying the cleaner directly (which would be unusual when hiring a company, as that's what you'd do if you booked a cleaner through an agency), when you pay for the cleaning slot you don't need due to your holiday, you are actually paying the company not the cleaner, and there's no knowing that the cleaner benefits from it.

A "proper" cleaning company should be one step ahead of the curve anyway, and managing the number of clients booked in vs. staff available, bearing in mind that staff "sickness" can be rife in this industry, so a cancellation can often be welcome.

I’ve never had a cleaner but, no, there is no way I’d pay that.

It sounds like she knows her worth which is great but she seems to know that not everyone will think she’s worth an extra £500 for no work.

Been weighing up this dilemma myself, although from the other way round. My cleaner is from a family run business and I’ve been told you only pay for the hours done. She’s booked for 3 hours a week and I pay her for those even if she finishes early because the house is not messy and/or one of the kids is ill so she can’t do their room. My feeling being we have that slot and she has pitched up, she gets full pay whether she does two hours or three.

So, this means she does not get paid when we are on holiday, which I didn’t appreciate when we ‘contracted’ with the cleaning co. It doesn’t sit right with us.[Also, I am funny about giving anyone outside the family and a trusted neighbour a key to access the house in our absence, so won’t have her come then.] DH and I had already decided we would give her a week’s pay for the two weeks when we are away. A summer bonus if you like, because she is losing 2 weeks pay. I have given plenty of notice so she can’t pick up other one-off jobs if they’re offered, but on the assumption that we have those hours and are asking her not to come in, we’ll pay her half pay.

I know it goes against the advice here, and maybe I’d feel differently if she’d asked. If I’d employed her direct, I am anal enough to have clarified holiday/sick pay at the point of contracting. If she is on holiday, the family send an alternate cleaner, so we pay the ‘company’ anyway and they pay the person who comes in her place so actual holiday is dealt with by them.

It's all subjective. "The ironing" is not quantifiable amount of ironing, but even without it, I'd struggle to do that much cleaning in six hours at my age...I might be able to if and only if the house wasn't too bad to begin with.

Self employed domestic cleaner here. Firstly NEVER pay cash hand. You are complicit in her avoiding paying tax and class 2 National insurance. Theoretically HMRC could come after you for her unpaid tax. Always have a paper trail. I have never been paid holiday pay. She is taking you for a sucker. 6 hours is a crazy amount of hours anyway. I would clean a large house with several bathrooms and bedrooms, change beds and do the ironing in that time. She isn't lovely. I appreciate you may like to keep her but gently reign this in.

You live in London. Rules for domestic cleaners are very different there as you don't seem to struggle to get people to clean in London. The rest of the country is quite different from that.

£20 ph when the customer supplies everything is a very good rate to earn when cleaning in London.