Nursery nightmare

[Workingmums]

Hi
I came here to ask for advice and point of views on my current situation.
I am a single mum of a 1 and 2 years old girls, I am working part time and studying for my masters. I have enrolled my girls into nursery for the 1st time, close to our home there was a new nursery open so I decided to enroll them there. I specifically asked them to give me a mock of how the invoices will look like so I can prepare financially, I have also told them that I am yet due to start working again as I was in Mat leave I don’t know what 3 I will be in but they said that was ok as they have plenty of spaces. 2 months go by and we have no issues, afterwards where was issues with the invoices they have changed the hourly rate from £8 to £9 than £10 on 3 separate occasions I thought that was the end of it but come to the 3rd month I had another correction of the past 3 months and the month coming written in bold of a payment due by next month of around 1.5k (the issue was that they invoiced for funded hours only not for stretched for 3 months so for 6hrs 2 kids a week in nursery comes up to that amount) …. I replied back I hope this is the one and I do think this is a bit ambiguous giving that all of the sudden one of my little ones is not listening 🙉 and 6 weeks of invoices in advance I mean, be a bit sensitive I am not made of money . So i have overdrawn my account and paid the balance. I also needed to have a chat with them as this can not happen again. When I sat down to have a chat I was expecting the manager/owner but it was her daughter, snd she had her little black book with all her zeros written down letting me know that she needed to have her math right before, I told her that I know how to add 2 and 2 together I here for another concern, I have a feeling you guys are pushing this to terminate my girls placement for God knows what reason, I told her just to clear you can not do this 1.5k drop to me again my account is overdrawn I only make so much and only have little time in between to check so please make sure everything is right. Honestly i could not keep it together and I was emotional. For some reason she was to. At the end she asked me if I still want to continue with the placement… after I just paid everything… I said of course (i don't have any other choice anyway) . I emailed again today letting them know I will change one day around and the email I got back is letting me know that after the discussion on Friday they are sorry to terminate the contract with 2 weeks notice.
i am left with no money and no childcare can someone please explain is this normal practice or what is happening because I honestly just want someone to tell me that April 1st is just around the corner and this was a stupid joke . After the “recovery” period I need to go through I don’t even know If I could look at nurseries the same way ever again, I mean I specifically chose this one as It was supposed to be family run not a big corporation…
please excuse my typos

Sorry...I'm a bit confused
They say you owe them £1-500 ?

Why did you bring up terminating the contract? Is it you think they want your girls on set days?

Yes £1500 for incorrect invoicing

I’m confused; I don’t understand the issue.

The 1.5k is retrospective for incorrect invoices for childcare already delivered or was for future childcare you haven’t yet received?

Surelt if the latter and they’ve terminated then they’ll need to transfer it back?

Sounds line they’ve terminated because of the meeting on friday; I don’t understand why it led to the nursery staff crying !? Did you get aggressive with them? All sounds v odd and stressful for them. Unless they’re absolutely rogue and fraudsters then it just sounds like you’ve been overly intense with them.

hard to say without clearer information

I can not follow this post at all, I think you should have MN delete it and write it out again.

Are you saying they have backdated invoices to include the price increase before they told you the increase would start?

I asked them if they think my eldest is not a good fit after they gave me the 1.5k bill because they were exaggerated things . They gave me a incident form saying that my kid threw a toy and hit another kid. I said im sorry I know she likes to throw things around than she added that it could have been much worst as smaller kids are more sensitive to what I said yes that’s why they are in separate rooms afterwards she told me that this is the 1st incident and when I get the 3rd one we will have to discuss a behaviour plan. I told her ok we will talk about this if it gets there as I don’t think it will . But everyday at pickup after that there were complaints and only complaints, she was not being playing nice with her sister, she is not listening, she had an accident, she poured water on her top. Thats why I asked @Lulu1919

Was the money something you owed or for childcare going forward

Back pay and another 6 weeks in advance @wineandcheeseplease

So you’re saying they increased your bill because of behavioural issues to drive you out?

It sounds like you’ve been very defensive rather than work with the nursery to address behaviour. They deal with kids all day every day so if they’re having to flag issues on a daily basis I would assume her behaviour is unusual or outside of the normal toddler issues. Your failure to engage with this sounds like the reason for the cancelled place?

It still makes no sense. How did you end up behind on payments?

@WorkingmumsI’m sorry but I’m really struggling to understand what you mean.

The issues of your daughter’s behaviour are completely separate to any invoice issues.

What bill were you expecting?

What bill were you given, for the same period of time?

What date have you paid up until?

It’s on you to know what the cost of your childcare is. How did you end up with arrears?

@Catlad , you think I was defensive because I told them not to jump from 1 incident form to “behaviour plan”? I have always spoken to them and from the last month they all seemed frustrated I could see that but one said one thing up to the billing. And do you think after having a meeting where we said and settled on one thing to come back after the weekend ok thank you for paying for our mistakes and 6 weeks in advance we are terminating your contract…

Maybe type it out again. As multiple issues are making everything hard to follow!

the issue was that they invoiced for funded hours only not for stretched for 3 months so for 6hrs 2 kids a week in nursery comes up to that amount)

Don't understand this bit. It sounds like it was far more than you expected. Had they given you an agreement on what the fees would be at the start? Did you read it if so?

So you paid 6 weeks in advance & they gave you 2 weeks notice? In that case they owe you the 4 weeks you've paid for but won't receive.

It doesn't sound like that nursery will work out, whatever the rights and wrongs you clearly think they're overreacting /failing to manage behaviour appropriately... so it's better to find somewhere else. The tearful meeting sounds very unprofessional of them.

Nope still can’t follow this.

You enrolled your children in nursery, presumably you checked the fees beforehand.

How many weeks have your children been enrolled? What is the weekly fee? How much have you been invoiced? How much have you actually paid so far?

the behaviour issues are entirely separate.

@Catlad also . The meeting on Friday I asked for after the billing, and on the meeting I was already emotional I did tell her, that she should be a bit more mindful about her invoicing because at the moment I have overdrawn my account to settle what ever she said it needed to be settled, yes I started crying at that point she started crying I don’t know why . So I asked her is it anything else also why just write in bold here is the amount pay up by the 30th to avoid 10% penalty fees no sorry no nothing, no call, not face me just hide behind an email, i mean I see you guys every day … that is a bit unsettling so I asked what I was thinking is my kid being difficult? Do you want us to look somewhere else because of that ? She said no , we want to support your family to the best of our abilities, at the end she also asked of I want to still continue with the placement . I said of course yes .

The people you see every day are very unlikely to be the same people who do the invoicing, so I’m not surprised they didn’t discuss the invoice with you.

If you owe the money, you owe the money. Why should they call you, say sorry etc. An e-mail is a perfectly appropriate way of communicating with you about invoicing and late payment.

the relationship has clearly broken down. I strongly suspect that you are minimising the way that you spoke to the nursery person if you made her cry.

Having your place terminated by a nursery is usually a last resort, reserved for those occasions where a parent has been unreasonable/abusive/unkind, and made an on-going relationship untenable.

So, they have invoiced me monthly. I was never in arrears with anything, what they said they did was that they made the invoice term time only for the funded hours instead of doing all year around or stretched. They never asked me to pay anything in advance like a deposit or anything just the month that I was invoiced . After 3 months they have redone all the invoices saying that they have done it wrong 😑 @lolly792 .

Your posts don't make any sense, they're garbled.

What are you doing a masters in?

So is it that you wanted then to help you spread the cost by using the money they get for the funded hours through the year?

I can see if they kept increasing the costs that would be annoying as you had not budgeted for that.

If you’ve paid 6 weeks in advance and they’ve given you 2 weeks notice, then I’d be emailing them and explaining that whilst you don’t understand why they have decided to terminate your contract, you accept it, and how would be best for you to give your bank details for the 4 weeks difference

Are they now making you pay 6 weeks in advance as you had late payments, hence the back pay?
Every nursery I’ve known requires payment in advance.