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Original poster

How much to pay relative's carers now that relative has passed away?

104 replies

NoonarAgain · 04/01/2015 12:28

My granny died before Christmas. Thanks to a team of 4 great carers, she was able to stay in her own home until the end. She needed round the clock care at the end, and this obviously was not cheap.

Now that gran has passed away, how much should the carers be paid in lieu of notice? The main carers are of retirement age, and two were friends of extended family stepping in to help my gran out. as far as I know are not rushing to find alternative employment.

I want to be fair to them. There is no written contract, so we have to just do what feels right. They were paid cash weekly. We cannot afford a month's pay for all as that would amount to many thousands of pounds. I said to dh that I'd like to ask them what's they'd feel happy with, but dh says that puts them in a difficult position.

Any thoughts?

OP posts:

Original poster

NoonarAgain · 04/01/2015 14:48

Hi all. Please be patient with me regarding my use of terms. I'm not an employer and don't know how things work.

Gran was definitely not a registered employer with hmrc. She just paid them cash.

In fact, I have misled you in my posts I think, although not deliberately.

The longstanding 'employee' was working for my gran. All arranged by gran. But...6 months ago my gran got dementia and family had to take on the role of arranging her care.

The longstanding assistant then took on a totally new role of carer ( previously it was cleaning and book keeping help). This was arranged by family as gran had lost capacity in this area. Flowery, this explains my view that it's not straightforward, I hope.

On reflection, I think that one must say the other two were not employed by gran as she had reduced capacity when they started.

OP posts:

flowery · 04/01/2015 14:53

I'm sorry, why do you think your gran's mental capacity affects her carers' employment status?

flowery · 04/01/2015 14:54

Oh, and you don't have to be registered with HMRC to be an employer, nor do you have to pay staff by bank transfer or cheque.

Original poster

NoonarAgain · 04/01/2015 14:54

Each week the hours would vary slightly, they would record their hours worked and note down what they were owed. You could say this was a very basic form of invoice. How does that change things?

OP posts:

ClashCityRocker · 04/01/2015 14:56

Who was responsible for paying the tax and NI on the salary?

ClashCityRocker · 04/01/2015 14:57

Or money received, if you see what I mean.

Original poster

NoonarAgain · 04/01/2015 14:58

Flowery....Umm..because she didn't know why they were there...and because the original verbal contract she had ( for cleaning and book keeping) was not the same arrangement that was in place when she died. In other words, I'm suggesting there are two separate 'contracts' for two very different jobs, arranged by different people.

OP posts:

christmaspies · 04/01/2015 14:58

It sounds as if they were all self employed.

flowery · 04/01/2015 14:59

It doesn't. Thousands of employees work slightly different hours each week and record them on a time sheet or similar.

Why the desire to find ways of reducing how much this employee/person gets? She presumably served your gran loyally and well for a very long time, why do you want to avoid paying her proper redundancy pay? Isn't that what your gran would have wanted?

ClashCityRocker · 04/01/2015 15:00

It would be more usual for them to be on a self employed or agency basis.

Nyborg · 04/01/2015 15:00

I'm a lawyer (though not probate) and Flowery is right - it's actually a very straightforward situation covered by redundancy law and so you aren't in a situation where you need to decide what to pay them. You have to pay them the amount they're entitled to, and doing otherwise could cause all sorts of problems - if you're the executor, you have specific legal responsibilities which include administering the estate in accordance with relevant law.

Original poster

NoonarAgain · 04/01/2015 15:00

My gran was nearly 100. She didn't pay anyone's tax or NI :-)
She got a bit of help, they got a cheque.

OP posts:

ChippingInLovesChristmasLights · 04/01/2015 15:01

It sounds more like they were friends of your gran/the family helping out and getting a bit of cash in hand, rather than actual employees. Is that right?

ClashCityRocker · 04/01/2015 15:03

It does sound as if they were engaged on a self employed basis. If you gran was not running a payroll and deducting tax and NI from the payments they received, they would have had a duty to declare the earnings to hmrc themselves.

The employed/self employed status could be challenged by hmrc, but this is unlikely as there was no contract in place.

First port of call would maybe be to check with the cares whether they were engaged on an employed or self employed basis.

ChippingInLovesChristmasLights · 04/01/2015 15:04

I'm sorry you are having to deal with all of this. It's hard to get your head around stuff you've never had to deal with before when you are grieving.

flowery · 04/01/2015 15:05

So you'd be trying to claim no continuity of service therefore no redundancy pay?

Do you know what, I'm out. I've explained the legal entitlements and I'm pretty horrified by what seems like an attempt to find ways of avoiding that and paying less.

You have fiduciary duties as an executor as mentioned above. You might want to look into the personal implications of those before hoping these carers don't check out their rights.

flowery · 04/01/2015 15:06

"If you gran was not running a payroll and deducting tax and NI from the payments they received, they would have had a duty to declare the earnings to hmrc themselves"

Nope. Doesn't work like that. Otherwise no employer would bother doing PAYE.

ClashCityRocker · 04/01/2015 15:07

You have fiduciary duties as an executor as mentioned above. You might want to look into the personal implications of those before hoping these carers don't check out their rights.

But the rights of an employee verses the right of a self employed person are different things. If it was a window cleaner or gardener, would they get redundancy pay?

Of course if they were employees they would get statutory redundancy pay. But it doesn't sound like they are.

Original poster

NoonarAgain · 04/01/2015 15:08

Thanks clash.

Flowery, you've obviously decided that I am someone unscrupulous which is interesting given the tone of my OP.

What I'd like to discuss further is the point that the longstanding assistant had two 'contracts' for two different posts- one with gran and one with gran's next of kin.

OP posts:

christmaspies · 04/01/2015 15:09

Flowery I don't think people are trying to help the op get out of paying what is due to the carers. I think it is more that the op doesn't know what is due and doesn't think she has the means to pay them anyway. If there is plenty of money from the grandparent's estate then obviously the carers can be paid from that but if not the op has to decide how much she can afford to pay them from a moral point of view.

ClashCityRocker · 04/01/2015 15:10

"If you gran was not running a payroll and deducting tax and NI from the payments they received, they would have had a duty to declare the earnings to hmrc themselves"

Nope. Doesn't work like that. Otherwise no employer would bother doing PAYE.

I think you find it does - the recipient has to declare all untaxed taxable income over a certain level to hm revenue and customs. Hmrc could then go on to pursue ops grans estate on the grounds that she was employing them and should have been paying NI (which would be the only 'loss' to the revenue).

DeadCert · 04/01/2015 15:10

You said you can't pay them all another months wages as that would "amount to several thousands" what would you have done if your gran had lived?

Sounds to me like you're just trying to find out the minimum you have to pay, it doesn't sound like you need to do that if your gran had the means to pay for 24/7 private care.

Pay them as much as they should have earnt, it's fairly obvious you can you just don't want to.

ClashCityRocker · 04/01/2015 15:13

deadcert I think she was planning on paying them some now rather than out of the grans estate which will have to go through probate before the funds can be distributed.

InfinitySeven · 04/01/2015 15:13

You can't suddenly decide that they were self employed, sadly. You'd open a whole can of worms if you tried, it doesn't sound like they'd fit the description at all.

You need to pay the stat minimums, based on most recent pay. Otherwise they could attempt to retrieve the owed pay from the executor personally.

Original poster

NoonarAgain · 04/01/2015 15:14

I'm genuinely still unclear about how I discover if they were self employed. What's the key deciding factor?

Actually, flowery, you are wrong about me and my intentions. The longstanding carer is actually still helping me out with gran's affairs as she was her bookkeeper. So her current pay is a for a hours a week. ( this won't last more than a couple of months). So actually her final pay will be very low. I do want to be fair, actually.

OP posts:

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