Late Fees

[DancingQueen]

the more I thought about the more I can't. MOM pays me. Not dad. He couldn't care less about my late fees because it hits HER not him. She pays me and she gets state subsidy for most of it. He has NO incentive for being on time. He normally IS here by 5pm. I don't usually have a problem with him. But I am only open til 4:30. I make an exception for this little girl. So 7pm really was not fun!!!

I have to figure out late fees going forward. Perhaps this is something she'll have to add to her court discussion hearing she has next week. <sigh>

[BentleysBands]

as long as a parent calls and we have no plans i dont charge. dependong on how late and we DO have plans, we just take the kid w/us . then they have to p.u when we get back along with $10 to cover the dinner we bought.

other than that i dont...

[MarinaVanessa]

no - I am referring to when they are late to come and pick up their children.

Oh, in this case and if they call then I do give a 15 minute grace period (which is not in the contract) because sometimes there are things that no one plans for like traffic. I don't announce it because I don't want clients to take advantage, which you know they will if they know that there's a buffer. Also I only give a grace period to clients that don't do it routinely, meaning that they aren't late to pick up all of the time. If they pick up late on a regular basis then I will charge.

If they call before coming late and they are not over their 10 hours a day maximum and I have other kids in care and it doesn't inconvenience our activities or plans then I might not charge them if they don't do it on a regular basis. Also if they pick up 15 minutes late then I may not charge but if they arrive more than 15 minutes late then I'll charge for this time including the first 15 minutes that they were late. Does this make sense? If they don't call and they are late then I charge for sure.

Also I close at 6pm. If a parent is late and it's 6pm or later then there is no grace period. They are late, period. Call or no call.

[countrymom]

but becareful with late fees because.....
my back up care is a provider also, so in her contract she states that if you are late you have to pay ***x amount of money, well she had a mom give her extra money one day so when christina asked her what that was for, the mom said that its for late fees because she was going to be late picking her dd up from shopping, it was going to be almost 3 hours late, well christina couldn't believe it because she closes at 530pm but because she didn't put a clause in the contract about the late fees being only good for one hour this lady thought it was for an additional 3 hours after she closed. I hope this made sense, she didn't watch her.

[DBug]

I don't charge for late drop-offs (although we may not be at the house when they do end up dropping off) or pick-ups, as long as it's not after 6pm (my closing time). And at 6:01, the $1/minute rule kicks in. I'm open at 6am, so I've already put in a 12 hour day. So I make it very clear to parents in the interview, that while they can leave their child with me up to 12 hours a day, they can't do it any longer than that. I have charged parents when they were held up because of bad weather. Honestly, they can check the forecast, traffic, etc. before leaving work, and my parents do have the ability to leave work early, especially if a winter storm is coming. Haven't had any serious complaints yet . Of course, I did make one exception to the closing time rule, for a young mom whose military husband was on the other side of the world for a bit -- she had no family around, and it was only for an extra hour once a week. BUT, I made sure to keep that a secret from my other families

[legomom922]

I charge late fees. The first 5 min is free but after that its $5 per half hr. I'm sure his boss is not going to be paying him if he got to work late in the am because of bad weather. If you let it go, any storm you get he will expect to get a freebie. Start it with the first time they are late and stick to it.