It’s important to plan ahead for the last few weeks that your Au Pair is with you.
Not only do you have to prepare your kids, say goodbye, and address all sorts of emotional and relationship issues — you also have to deal with finances.
Many au pairs borrow money from their host families, or take too many / too few vacation days, have outstanding bills for the phone, or whatever. Agencies all have some kind of financial ‘close out’ form or ritual to help organize these financial issues … and it often happens that au pairs end up owing their host parents a bit of change.
Of course, you’d do this very legitimately and honestly –not as a host parent scam!
Host parents should start the financial “close out” conversation in plenty of time — say, two or three weeks before an au pair’s departure.
This way, if either party owes money to the other, you’ve got a few weeks of pocket money/stipend to work with. This might be helpful in a situation like the one the host parents, below, find themselves in.
My wife and I worked through AuPair in America for our au pair. We have had a great year thus far with few issues. At Christmas, our au pair told us that she wanted to extend for another year. She has told us that several times since then and last week looked us both in the eye and confirmed her desire to stay with us.
We filled out the extension paperwork (which she signed, extending her contract), and paid the $367 extension fee to the state department as required by our agency.
This morning, she told my wife and I that while she wants to extend, she wants to do it with another family somewhere else in the US.
Do I have any recourse to get that fee back? The state department to my knowledge does not require host families to foot that bill. Rather, it is the cost to extend the J-1 visa (which is hers, not ours).
I feel like we paid on good faith and are now eating the bill with nothing to show for it other than a last minute struggle to find other child care providers.
Is there any way we can hold her responsible for it? We have a signed contact but she will be leaving regardless.
Thanks!
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While the $367 is sent to the Department of State and non refundable I would absolutely call the agency and insist that she pay and you be credited toward your next au pair. If she had decided earlier to extend with a new family she would have been responsible for paying that fee to extend and get her profile back in the system so it’s only fair now that she changed the terms that she also pay the extension fees.
You could discuss with her directly but especially if it’s tense and short notice and she hasn’t already offered to pay you back directly and you don’t want to deal with being the bad guy I’d just call your agency and ask them to invoice her and credit you so you can all move on and then it’s simply a rational change of terms and doesn’t look like revenge (because it’s not, this is an extremely reasonable request) and hopefully you can all part ways on good terms.
A sidenote, I know you must be really upset and she likely doesn’t understand how good she has it, but you can’t do anything about all that now. You want someone that wants to be there and is excited about the opportunity to be with your family. Appreciate the time you have had with her and that she completed her original term as promised (which is all you can ever really expect) and try to take the high road and find someone new and great! Then you’ll have no regrets and potentially a long term relationship (if you want to stay in touch).
You never know what might happen in the future. Odds are her decision has nothing to do with wanting something better. Odds are you were such great hosts that she thinks everyone is like you and wants to do it again in another place! They are young and it’s an adventure. Hang in there!
Thanks for sharing this issue and great comment from TexasHM. We are brand new host family and this is our first half year with our first ever aupair. Things are going well as far we are concerned, and our aupair has said many times she wants to stay with us for another year but anything can flip and change her mind anytime like the original post. When the extension period comes, I think I will be asking our aupair to pay for the extension fee first and then I will pay her afterward to avoid sticky situation like this. Thanks for sharing!!
Definitely discuss with your agency about getting a credit. Although an au pair can rematch families, your au pair would have to look at host families already in-network with your specific agency. Suppose that is the case, that host family would have to pay a fee, which, your agency could then credit back to you (since you didn’t get full benefit).
If your au pair finds another host family associated with another agency, she will have to leave the US and get a new J1 issued while in her home country. If it is a family that is completely new to the au pair program, she would have to convince them to sign-up with your agency and that family would incur all off the hefty upfront payments.
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