Finding Domestic Help

Finding a trustworthy person to help you out around your home can be a challenging task. Unfortunately, there are no official companies that offer domestic services and you often have to find someone by searching through newspaper and Internet advertisements or by word of mouth. There may be a number of things you will need to consider before recruiting help. How many times a week do you require someone to help out? Do you need someone to take care of the children or to help with light household chores? What about garden work?

Finding a babysitter is probably the easiest kind of help you will be able to find. Many teenagers are willing to earn extra cash by offering their services for babysitting and homework tuition. You will often be able to find small-adds with names and telephone numbers hanging on bullet on board in your local supermarket. If you are not able to find a teen in your neighbourhood, you may want to call a professional babysitting service. The fees, which range from anything up to 15 Euros an hour, are higher than those for hiring a teenager.

Finding someone to clean your home may be more difficult. As with finding a babysitter, advertisements in newspapers and at the local supermarket can be very helpful. You could ask your neighbours or colleagues at work if they can recommend anyone. The average rate for cleaning help is between 7 and 15 Euros an hour. Not all hired help will clean your windows or do the washing and ironing. It is important to talk about the range of duties the job includes.

Clean windows are very important to the Germans and because of this you will find a number of window cleaning services listed in the telephone book. These companies will usually give you a fixed price for cleaning all the windows in your home.

Laundry and ironing services are offered by most dry cleaners. If you want your linens to be ironed, you can take them to the ironing service for a very reasonable price.

Hiring a gardener is a wonderful way to keep your garden looking its best. Would you like to have someone to mow the lawn, prune the trees or take care of the flowers? You may find ads in the local newspapers for retired persons or students looking for a part-time gardening job. There are also professional gardening and landscaping companies who you can hire to take care of your property. This kind of service can be quite expensive.

Legal requirements for hired help

You are legally required to register your hired help to make sure they pay their taxes and are insured in your home in case of an accident. If you only employ someone for a couple of hours a week, it may be possible to register them as having a “mini-job“ earning no more than 400 Euros a month. In this case you are required to pay an additional social insurance fee of roughly 25 percent at the end of each month. Salary payment above 400 Euros a month requires more extensive reporting and filing requirements than those mentioned above. Domestic help, up to a certain limit, can be deducted from your tax return.