Retainer fees

[cedar12]

Hi I have just registered as a childminder so new to this. Have a teacher who wants me to look after her dd when she starts school in september. It will be a term time only contract which suits me as can spend more time with my dd in hols. I wouldnt charge her a retainer for the holiday weeks but for the termtime weeks before summer hols. How much is a resonable ammount to hold the place till september? Thanks

I also offer term time only contracts. I don't charge retainers for children in full time school, but I would charge a sizeable non-refundable deposit to discourage time=wasters. I now specify that the deposit will be forfeit unless they start by a specific date - I once made the mistake of agreeing to hold a place without a specific start date agreed (it was to be as soon as Mum started her new job), and that dragged on for two terms - you live and learn!

As I see it, retainers are to compensate you for the likelihood that you may have to turn away a family who would want an earlier start date because all your places were either filled or committed.

If I had only one daytime space left, and had someone want to reserve it for say September, I'd probably ask for a retainer to hold it, but then I wouldn't be too bothered if they decided to take their chances on the place still being there, or if they decided to walk away altogether. But then that is because there are a lot of enquiries coming through at the moment. If I had more than one space, and enquiries were sparse, I'd probably just take a deposit because it would be hard to justify taking a retainer if the "risk" of becoming full in the interim would be low.

HTH

I wouldn't charge a retainer unless she was taking up a space that I had to turn away someone else for - so if I had two EY children, and this one due to start in September, I wouldn't charge unless someone else came along asking for the third EY space.

If you DO want to charge though, I'd say 50% of the fee.

Thanks I think I will just ask for a deposit then.

Sorry to hijack - but how would that work in practice Flisspaps? How would you know the second family wanted the space and were actually ready and willing to sign up unless you had gone through the whole process of visits, agreeing terms etc? If someone else came along, you got on like a house on fire and they wanted to start straight away, would you really then say hang on a minute, I'm going to offer someone else first refusal of taking up the place for half fees? (First family then says no I still don't want to pay a retainer thanks, second family says if you're going to mess us about, we'd rather go somewhere else).

If I was going to ask for a retainer, I'd put it to the first family that they would need to pay me something to hold the space and NOT try to fill it. I gain insofar as I get a few weeks of not working quite so hard with one space empty, but I accept that I could probably have been better off financially by filling the space quicker. If the family doesn't want to pay a retainer, they must accept I will carry on accepting enquiries and that the place may well be filled.

minderjinx That's exactly what I'd do. I wouldn't agree to anyone signing on the spot as I don't want the pressure of making a decision there and then - therefore if I saw someone who wanted a space NOW, I could ring the family who wanted the space later to give them the option of paying the retainer.

But then I've got work lined up from ex-colleagues for later in the year with no retainer yet, but if I get a full-time enquiry in the meantime I will ask the ex colleague for a retainer before offering the space elsewhere.