Does anyone have a sample letter requesting permission to start in-home child care?

What information should I include?

Thanks!

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I'm confused, who are you sending this letter to?

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I'm sorry I was in a rush.

I need to write a letter to my homeowners association either to inform them that I am planning to start or request permission to open an in-home child care.

Not sure how to word the letter. I don't have a copy of the covenants either.

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I do not think you need their permission to start your own business in your home. It has nothing to do with it. I have HOA (I hate it) for 6 years when we moved into our first home and I run a daycare with no problem.

Does HOA have policies about home business? If not, then you don't have to worry about that.

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Actually in most cases when dealing with a HOA there are clauses in the regs about home-businesses and sometimes they even specify about daycares. Mine does. What I did was contact my HOA first and ask them to e-mail me a copy about specific regulations in our HOA about starting a daycare in our home. This will outline exactly what you need to do. Usually they ask you to be licensed or registered (when required to do so by law), and have a minimum insurance for it. They ask for a copy of each and a letter pretty much just saying that you are notifying them that you will be doing daycare in your home. It's not you asking for permission exactly, more like you notifying them that you have everything you need in accordance to the HOA regs and letting them know that you'll be watching kids as a business.

Another thing to keep in mind is to make sure you have a contract and/or handbook. In the terms you should list rules for your families to follow that have to do with specific regulations in your HOA. For example parking (no blocking neighbors spaces, no parking in red zones etc.), noise (if you have certain times that you can be fined for being too loud list them), no honking, detroying of community property (grass, plants etc). Pretty much anything that you could be fined for because of a family. Make a clause in there that says that if you incur any fines due to them not following these rules that they will be responsible for paying these.

I had a family that constantly parked in a neighbors spot because it was closer/easier for them to drop off and pick up their kid even if I had two spots (my driveway & a spot next to our condo) available to them. They didn't want to walk around the front of the condo . The neighbors came to complain and I talked to them about it, the neighbors talked to them directly and it got to the point that they would start parking in other neighbors spots. They all started leaving notes on the windshield of her car and some reported it. I got letters from the HOA, the first being a warning and no fine. The second was a $50 fine which I charged them. They did good for a few weeks and then one day the mom was running late and parked in a maintenance no parking zone ... on the day that they did maintenence on the shrubs and they reported her so that 3rd notice was $100. I charged for that also. They finally got the point. Once I had an issue with a mom that would honk and I told her about the first family and she immediately stopped. You DON't want to have issues with your neighbors or your HOA. Believe me it's a nightmare.

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I did day care for the first eight years in a condo and I agree that you can't piss anyone off.

This was back in the early 90's and all I had to do was attend a board meeting and ask for permission to have a day care. It affected them because the association held the insurance on the exterior part of the property.

They agreed and I got a copy of the meeting minutes where it was voted on and passed.

That's all I had to do but that was a long time ago.

I had to be VERY strict about my dc parents behavior on the property. I had a lot of situations where I had to get them to stop or they would be kicked out of the day care. Luckily I had a very end unit so parking wasn't a big deal.

Parents being loud with music and their kids acting up outside was a problem. Living in a condo taught me how to protect my neighbors now. I have great neighbors and I will not allow my dcf's intrude into their lives. ANY concern with my neighbor and dcp's will loose. My neighbors are very important to our family's happiness so I want them to be happy.

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We have an end unit too which is why I have 2 parking spots available to the families. This particular family just didn't want to have to park in driveway and walk around to the side then to the front of the house. They didn't even want to park on the side parking spot and walk to the front of the condo. It was frustrating. My neighbors understood that I had talked to them about it and the notes left by them on DCM's cars threatened to have their cars towed and such. This fam just did not get it until they started getting fines... well we were getting fines and the notices had their license plate numbers so it was no doubt that it was them, then I'd just tack on the fee to their week's tuition. Each time a unit get a fine of the same kind the fine goes up by $50 so I always make sure to tell my new families that if they park where they aren't supposed to the next fine is $150. Havn't had a problem with this since. My neighbors were understanding about it and were aware that I had talked to her about it several times (since so had they) and thank god they were awsome about it.

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I had a privacy fence around a little court yard area. They could drive right up to the gate of the fence so it was maybe ten feet to my back door. It was easy so it worked out. I could take two cars in that area and one in my free spot so I could handle three at a time if it worked out that way.

I get ya on the fine thing. It's a good lesson for the business in general. If you want to make an impression you have to charge for the service. Money makes all the difference when it comes to getting people to do the right thing.

The problem with the fee amount now is that you could end up having a client walk away from your contract to avoid paying the parking fee. It's high enough now to piss people off enough to just leave YOU in order to avoid the fee. That could be a problem as it goes higher and higher.

Isn't it amazing what people will do to avoid a couple of extra feet of walking? I have a single lane long dirve way and I park my car right at the sidewalk level to prohibit people from having the space to double park and having the second car going over my sidewalk. If I park my car up the driveway to my garage I start having people double parking.

When the person who gets blocked in gets pissed then I get the flack. I have it in my policy to not double park.

Now I have problems with them waiting in the street to get a shot at the driveway. That's mostly in the winter but now and then I have it during other seasons. If I get one parent in the driveway who wants to talk at pick up I can get parents just parking and wating on the street to get to the driveway. It's like the difference of thirty/forty FEET to just park and walk up the driveway.

I've had to add to my policies that they can't keep their kid in day care past pick up time in order to wait for a turn at the driveway. I always think that the distance they have to walk from the street would be the normal distance they would walk from the parking lot in the grocery store to the front door of the grocery store IF they got a close up spot. It's not that far.

It's just easier to sit in your car and talk on the phone while you wait for your turn. It's easier for them but not easier for me. I would rather get the kid scooted out the door so I can tend to little mr. next.

The other thing that drives me batty is the sitting in the driveway and talking on the cell phone. My friend owns two Centers and she has bought a cell phone descrambler thingy that blocks the cell phones when they are on her property. She has had SO many problems with parents parking in her parking lot and just talking on the phone instead of coming in and getting their kid. She doens't have the problem at all during drop off ... just at pick up time. She's also had a terrible time with staff sneaking phones in.

So she bought this cell phone blocker thing and just flips a switch when she can see parents on the phone in the driveway. I have to admit that would be kinda fun to do.

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And VERY VERY illegal, too.

Can carry a fine of $11k and up to one year in the pokey.

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I'll have to tell her that. Is that in every state?

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Wow, at first I thought this would be a great idea but I googled it and it says that it's illegal in US to own one. They give the excuse that they "interfere with emergency communications between police and rescue personnel, aid in criminal activity as well as disrupt medical equipment like pacemakers."

I saw the thing about the $11,000 fine but it did say that it would be extremely difficult for the FCC to locate the exact location of the jammer. Why do all the fun toys have to be illegal?

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I thought of that cept the pacemaker part. YIKES I'll be letting her know that. Why would those be for sale if you can't use them?

I thought of getting one just to have for that moment when I have someone on the phone in my driveway. I wouldn't have it on all the time because I wouldn't want to disable my neighbors phones.

I've had to fire a good staff assistant over the cell phone thing. I imagine it's tempting for businesses to use something like this because it is SO hard to get people to stay off their phones now. I guess if there is a market for something like this then people will sell them... legal or not.

Not to change the subject but I wonder how businesses are coping with this generations cell phone addiction? I wonder how many firings and unemployment claim disputes come down to employees being fired over the phone deal? Wouldn't it be intersting to know what percent of unemployment benefit disputes include disciplinary issues soley because of use of cell phones during work?

That would be crazy interesting to me.

I predict that there will be apps on phones that have some sort of braille touch pad where you can read your texts with your fingertips instead of with your eyes. That would solve the having to take it out of your pocket to check it thingy.

My neice can text completely blind and one handed. She carries her phone with her in her pocket and just reaches in the pocket and texts away. She can't read incoming texts tho. I'm guessing there will be an app for that soon enough.. something that makes some part of the phone show the text with something braille like where you can just put your fingertip on it and have it scroll the text to you in bumps.

If someone does invent that please give me the credit I so richly deserve.

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Hi I was wondering if you ever got information on writing a letter to your HOA, or if you happen to have a copy of your letter?!

I am currently in the same boat.. and at a loss of what to write to mine?

If you have any information, please email me amylyn930@bellsouth.net

thanks so much

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Some HOA do not allow businesses to be operated in the facility. You need to read your HOA docs.

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In most cases FCC (familt child care; childcare in yor own home) isn't considered a commercial business and is protected from these regulations. I am not yet aware of any state that does not protect family childcares but who knows, I may just not be aware of it. I know CA does, and WA i believe. In CA state regulations trump HOA regulations and even landlord renter contracts which say that no businesses can be run out of the home. Here it's illegal if you live in a neighborhood with an HOA or rent an apartment, home or condo from a landlord which have regulations against businesses to deny someone from doing daycare in the home. They have to notify you but you can't say no. You can't even raise the rent if your tenant wants to do daycare.

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