Paid childminder full fees as retainer during COVID lock down, now tells us she is closing business

@modgepodge.
But guidence was clear keyworkers could get care but only if no one was working from home and it would be unsafe for the child. To break this invalidated insurance and risked Ofstef intervention....although I'm sure some did.

[quote jannier]@modgepodge...
Yes some schools particularly have made their 9wn decisions but your cm was following guidence....your husband was working from home therefore could care for your children so I don't get why you brought her up as an example. Now if you had said school deciding only the same parent can do drop off and pick up id agree....totally illogical as anyone living in the same bubble does not introduce more risk...but being forced to leave work as a nurse early to do the collection or your partner loose their job that can not be done from home is mad, and not any guidence.[/quote]
I mentioned her only because someone said ‘ Just wondering if the original poster is classed as key worker? as if they are the childminder would have been about to care for the children all along’ - I was just pointing out that wasn’t necessarily the case, my CM being an example!

I agree lots of schools have added additional ridiculous rules (and on here I have seen some truly crazy ones for September) which don’t help anyone and make some families’ lives very tricky :( irrelevant to the OP of course!

@modgepodge...
Yes some schools particularly have made their 9wn decisions but your cm was following guidence....your husband was working from home therefore could care for your children so I don't get why you brought her up as an example. Now if you had said school deciding only the same parent can do drop off and pick up id agree....totally illogical as anyone living in the same bubble does not introduce more risk...but being forced to leave work as a nurse early to do the collection or your partner loose their job that can not be done from home is mad, and not any guidence.

Was there a contact involved with the retainer payment?

[quote jannier]@modgepodge.
The guidence was clear we were allowed to take children of keyworkers even if only 1 parent was a keyworker if the children could not be safely cared for at home..
.
But your husband was home which like most parents meant he could care for them....yes hard to work but most had to admittedly it was mainly women according to statistics but no reason why he couldn't im guessing he wasn't sawing, welding d8scusding medical, social or legal cases[/quote]
Yes, but every place interpreted it their own way - the government said one parent key worker was fine (in theory a SAHP with a partner working night shifts at Tesco could have sent child to school full time despite both parents being at home all day) but different places added extra rules. A friend of mine is a headteacher and chose to make the rules say BOTH parents had to be key workers - if they said only 1, they had half the school in which defeated the point of closing. My CM chose to refuse to take anyone unless both parents were out of the home, as well as one parent being a key worker. As it was, we both worked from home most of the time, and yes we managed to juggle the care between us - as you say it was hard work but manageable.

@modgepodge.
The guidence was clear we were allowed to take children of keyworkers even if only 1 parent was a keyworker if the children could not be safely cared for at home..
.
But your husband was home which like most parents meant he could care for them....yes hard to work but most had to admittedly it was mainly women according to statistics but no reason why he couldn't im guessing he wasn't sawing, welding d8scusding medical, social or legal cases

You may have paid full fees but maybe others didn’t

So she was entitled to claim for the seiss grant

She may have got it in May as I did. But it covered the 3 months and wouidnt have been much as 80% of nett profits - not 80% of gross salary as was furlough

So you should have paid May imo

She was open June July aug but you chose not to use her so she was entitled to her fees imo

She should give you the full notice whether 4w or more whatever is in contract

£2000 for twins over 5mths isn’t much. How many days are they doing - assume 1-2 days a week

OP...I think unfortunately you’ve lost that money. It was actually only April you paid as a retainer. She reopened and kept your places in June and July (and August?), and you chose not to use them. It must be extremely frustrating, especially at such short notice, but I’m not sure she’s done anything wrong.

Just wondering if the original poster is classed as key worker? as if they are the childminder would have been about to care for the children all along

If all of her families continued to pay in full she was unaffected. Which is what I said in my previous post. Believe me, I've done a lot of investigation into this.

Its not just about the financial side of things.

@IncrediblySadToo my childminder actually filled her places in June/July after she was allowed reopen.

OP read your contact as 4 weeks is 28 days not a month. If she gave you less than 4 weeks notice then you can ask for a refund for the period she didn't give you notice. Also if you don't pay her for August then she can counterclaim, which means your April payment will offset not paying her for August.

She should refund you any fees paid before June but after that she was open and you chose not to send the children to her.

Unfortunately I would have said you aren't entitled to any money back - it was your choice not to send your children when she reopened. The £2k was to cover fees for your places when it was your decision to keep them home?

Small claims court if she doesn’t refund you the money?

Except that you don't claim furlough.

@christinarossetti19 no, but for the people banging on about reporting the childminder for claiming furlough when still working it's a pretty important distinction to make clear!

Hi, Iam a childminder there was no furlough for self employed we were able to claim SEISS which was based on 80% of our profits on our last years trading. You had to have had 3 years worth of accounts to apply and getting anything, if eligible you had to declare you will stay open and in business for the rest of this tax year. Was she closed in April to you or did you choose not to send your twins. Sorry but as she was open in June July and you did not send the twins in you have lost that money. But she should pay you back the April fees if she was closed and not just your decision not to send in. Sadly loads of childminders have closed there doors since lockdown and I can see many more doing the same in the next year .did you pay a deposit for their spaces as she owes you this as well. If she asks you to pay notice period I would tell her to use the April fees.

Okay then, furlough-like scheme for self-employed people. The eligibility criteria were initially if your business had been adversely affected due to covid, and have become more complex www.icaew.com/coronavirus/self-employment-income-support-scheme

OP's query is about her contract and relationship with her childminder though, not the details of the SEISS.

The childminder reopened her business in June, and OP chose not to use her service, so it's not true to say that she's not reopening or hasn't reopened.

@christinarossetti19 I'm well aware of the SEISS having applied for it myself. But it's not a furlough scheme. Furlough means you are not working and people on furlough were not allowed to work for their employer. The self employment grant was payable even if you were still working, so long as your income had been affected by Covid19. They are different things with different eligibility criteria to satisfy and it's important not to mix the two up!

Todaysthiscouldbe the eligibility criteria for applying for the self-employed income support scheme were that your business was 'adversely affected due to covid'.

The criteria did say that you needed to be able to evidence this, but not how. As the SSEISS will be taxed, I guess it will become very obvious to the HRMC which businesses were or weren't adversely affected in due course. Also as pp says, SE people could work in addition to applying for the SEISS.

It's my guess that the Treasury will claim some grant money back from people whose tax returns come 20/21 don't evidence that their business was adversely affected by covid, but nothing about whether the grant will be payable back has been announced yet.

Also none of this is really relevant to the OP tbh. The childminder set out her terms which OP agreed to ie paying the full retainer. OP didn't use the service when it was open from June onwards (for completely understandable reasons).

How often were you using her? £2000 for twins, for that period seems very low.

I agree with the line of thinking that she was open from June, so you were paying for a place you were (understandably) choosing not to use,

During this time she's probably had several
Parents give notice as they're WFH or have been made redundant etc

She's obviously not got enough income & needs to close her business (given new clients might not be easy to get). She's entitled to close & she's entitled to give you notice (as per your contract) and you are obliged to pay her (as per your contract).

I think it's unfortunate, but I don't think she's done anything wrong (she's probably not happy at losing her business).

You had a place you could have used if you'd wanted to & that's what you were paying for.

I don't think you're entitled to any money back & I'm not sure why you think you are. If you had used the place you were paying for, this would have just been notice as per your contract.

She gave you a month for free,which she wasn't obliged to as the SEISS payment didn't mean the self employed couldn't work.

Good luck finding a new CM.

Unless of course, you had a new contract with this described as a retainer with different terms, but it sounds to me like you were just paying for your place but not using it.

I'm not really sure your Childminder has done anything wrong here? Shes been open June, July and August, so you have been paying for a place just choosing not to send your children. Its unfortunate for you that she has decided to close her business at short notice, but she was keeping a space that you could have used for your children during those months so is entitled to be paid for it.

The self employment grant was intended to keep self employed businesses running. It's my understanding that she may need to pay it back if she is closing.

How were you asked for payment? Were you invoiced as normal and told you must pay in full, or was it a voluntary contribution at your discretion?