Nursery has a new name, now we cant pay our fees

[NewMummyJelly]

Hi

My usual payment to my child’s nursery (through the tax-free Childcare government scheme) was rejected this month

this is because my child’s Nursery has changed to a new name.

The Nursery hasn’t registered the new name with the tax free Childcare scheme yet.

The Nursery is saying that it will be all set up for January which is next month.

This month they are looking for parents to pay the fees directly from our bank accounts to the Nursery bank account.

This means we are all going to lose out on our usual 20% top up from the government.

The Nursery says we need to pay now because they have expenses including staff wages to pay.

is this reasonable or unreasonable?

That's outrageous!

Definitely unreasonable, but not a lawyer and not sure what you can do

They don't have to accept tax free at all.

Is the contract in the old name ? Would that mean they need to issue new contracts before they can invoice you ?

The government tax free childcare website shows the old name and a note that the registration has expired, payments cannot be made now.

The nursery has applied to accept tax free childcare payments but this won’t be in place until January

Just say you can’t afford that.

So they either wait until January for the payment and move to paying a month in arrears.

Or they can reduce the bill to 80% but you want in writing that that is full payment and they will not peruse the further 20. And you will pay now for this month.

Their choice.

If they advertise that they do, then yes they do.

Did they give you notice that this would happen?

One of the nurseries near here doesn’t accept the tax free payments at all or employer vouchers - they only accept only funded hours and then they invoice the rest and they have a minimum number of hours per week they’ll accept children for - there’s no legal requirement for nurseries to do this but where we are there is such a shortage of nursery spaces people just book anyway and it’s a fantastic setting so they can basically sing their own tune. The only thing you can do is contact offstead and explain the issue and ask if there is anything you can do or the local council who might be able to speed up their registration.

Can you pay 80% and then they add the remaining 20% to next months nursery bill ready for it to go through tax free? Not sure if that works out bc I’m crap at math 🤣

if You can, just pay this months from your bank account and put more in to TFC over the next few months to make sure you get the top up equivalent so that you're even. I had to do this once - it all works out.

It’s possible that they’ve already re-registered but they there’s a delay at the other end. It’s a pain but from my own experience of how hard it is to pay staff from the funding and fees they’re being honest about needing that money to pay the staff. It’s all very well some saying that they’ll just have to wait for the money but think of the knock on effect it has for the setting. A while ago a couple of parents paid their fees late, the manager and myself had to go without wages resulting in us being unable to cover our own financial commitments that month. Nurseries are struggling financially as it is.

Maybe they should have thought about this before they went and changed their name? There will be parents who just can’t afford the additional 20% and why should they? If the nursery advertises that they accept TFC and they have infact accepted it upto now then that’s the basis of their contact with OP and I wouldn’t be paying a penny more.

Unfortunately the nursery is probably struggling to pay wages without all the fees being paid on time. Could you take money out of savings to cover the extra 20% or work out a payment plan with the nursery?

no it doesn’t work out. The OP would pay 80% this month, then 80% of the remaining 20% next month via TFC. In total they’ll have paid 96% instead of the 80% they’re entitled to pay.

this is really bad of the nursery. IMO they should be accepting a months delay on payment or accepting 80% payment this month as transfers so parents aren’t out of pocket. Or perhaps asking everyone to pay 80%as transfer, then refunding this next month on the understanding it will then be paid via TFC next month when they’re set up. Logistical nightmare though

Assuming they've just changed the name, I'm surprised they don't have access to the TFC account with the old name. Our nursery changed hands (and name), but accepted payment via the old TFC account while they got the new one set up.

It might be worth asking if they can accept payment into the old account.