Decreasing days - can deposit be decreased too?

[3beagles]

Not sure if my title makes sense - sorry!

I have my DC with my brilliant CM 2 days per week. If I get a new job, I'll look to decrease both children to 1 day per week.

My original deposit was for 2 days. As I'm not looking to terminate the contract, would the deposit be left alone, or used against fees until she held only 1 months fees?

If I were your CM I would be leaving your deposit alone. Given inflation deposits effectively decrease in value & in my contracts it states that the deposit will be credited towards (ie not equal to) the final invoice assuming correct notice has been given. However,by giving notice to changing your hours you are terminating your contract & making a new one so it could be argued that the CM could credit your original deposit against your notice period, and then you pay a new deposit for the new contract. Depends on what your CM suggests & if you want to upset the applecart I guess. There's nothing as emotive as wrangling over money. It can make a CM feel very unappreciated if not handled tactfully, though a good CM will always remain professional.
hth

Reducing your hours doesn't necessarily mean ending your contract, but you would need to give notice of wishing to vary its terms, and it would be up to her whether she agrees to the change in hours - if not, then you would have to end the contract. Assuming you have a typical contract, you would then have to pay your current fees for another month, even if you cut hours immediately, and even if she didn't feel she wanted to continue to offer care for reduced hours after that. Bearing in mind that she may well be less than thrilled about you changing your hours, and that a lot of childcare providers wouldn't be interested in one day a week, I wouldn't personally ask for a reduced deposit unless she suggested it.

Thank-you both.

I think that I'll leave the deposit issue alone then. I don't want to upset the relationship. I have to conceed that maybe one day won't be enough work and that she'll end up terminating my contact if she has someone to fill the space (and more). I hope that as I always pay on time, never late collecting DCs, complete all paperwork etc it would count in my favour.

We'll see what happens. Many thanks for replies.