Hiring a domestic worker

[sterne.law@gmail.com]

There are two scenarios - 1 the live in accomodation is part of the employment contract and is a term and condition.
The second is where the domestic is a tenant.
Each proffers different issues - In the second scenarion, you can run into the problem as Dave suggests. Thus if the accomodation is seperate, in other words you pay the domestic and they in turn pay rent, put a lease into place. The advantage of this is if you wish to keep the domestic but not have them on the premises you can decide not to renew lease and not need to engage on the employment contract side.
In the first case, if you no longer want the domestic as live in, you have an actual term and condition of contract that needs altering. Can be done but has the normal consultation and procedural routes. Alternatively have the accomodation as a BENEFIT and not a term. benefits can pretty much be altered at will. In either case have a monetary value put to the rental, even if there is no transaction.
The rental can be offset against the wages - eg if minimum wage is R1500 but you wanted to pay R1200 a month you would set the monthly wage as R1500 and deduct R300 as a consideration towards rent