Domestic Helpers using your apartment

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  1. #31

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    On the grounds that you don't choose your relatives but you do choose your employees, so that would reflect badly on you as well?


  2. #32

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    Quote Originally Posted by PDLM:
    What a bizarre statement! For many FDHs it is their only place of residence and it contains all their belongings so it must be their home.

    Presumably you would argue that all other people living in HK on employment visas are not living in their home either?
    No, it's not their home - it's their place of work and where they reside. Just like the troops in Afghanistan do not consider their base camp in Afghanistan home.

    For me my home is in Salford, not where I reside now despite the fact that I own the property I live in.

  3. #33

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    So if they have no property in some other country and all of their possessions are with them in HK then you would regard them as homeless?


  4. #34

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    Quote Originally Posted by PDLM:
    So if they have no property in some other country and all of their possessions are with them in HK then you would regard them as homeless?
    Ok, let me put it this way. When you rent a property to live in, you are tantamount to renting rights to live in that property as an owner would, right? But what do FDHs as an employee pay in consideration for the right to live in a place? They reside at a place by virtue of necessity of their duties, no more. If you terminated their employment, would you consider that taking away their home?

  5. #35

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    Quote Originally Posted by ray98:
    No, it's not their home - it's their place of work and where they reside. Just like the troops in Afghanistan do not consider their base camp in Afghanistan home.

    For me my home is in Salford, not where I reside now despite the fact that I own the property I live in.
    Whereas I consider HK my home even though my company provides my accommodation.

    Therefore it follows that it is not for us to determine where a DH considers her home but for her to do so. My DH would not consider our house her home as she has a husband and kids back home in her own house (where she is now for the school holidays) and she is only with us for say three years. Others are in a completely different situation.

  6. #36

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    Quote Originally Posted by ray98:
    Ok, let me put it this way. When you rent a property to live in, you are tantamount to renting rights to live in that property as an owner would, right? But what do FDHs as an employee pay in consideration for the right to live in a place? They reside at a place by virtue of necessity of their duties, no more. If you terminated their employment, would you consider that taking away their home?
    In some cases yes it would be taking away their home if that is what they consider it. They could have, as some of my friends have, been living there for 15 or more years.

    As for what DHs pay to live in your house, it is part of their wages - if they live out they earn more - the difference being what they are paying to live in your house.

  7. #37

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    Quote Originally Posted by hullexile:
    In some cases yes it would be taking away their home if that is what they consider it. They could have, as some of my friends have, been living there for 15 or more years.

    As for what DHs pay to live in your house, it is part of their wages - if they live out they earn more - the difference being what they are paying to live in your house.
    That's nonsense, the part of the wages bit. There is no significant incremental cost is providing accommodation in a place of residence, and the part of wages is just to exploit and justify the low market rate. The differential when a DH lives away is to partially compensate the opportunity cost of not living with the employer.

    My point above is when expats rent places, they can call it home because they pay rent, either privately or through their employer. If your employer wasn't paying for your accommodation then presumably he would give you a higher salary - to the employer accommodation is just part of the package - the cost of assignment.

    For DHs, they pay nothing, all this about consideration in kind as part of wages is nonsense. I mean if the DH left, would the employer be a few thousand better off by renting to an unconnected third party? Too many people in the PC brigade blur the lines on moral grounds, but DHs are just employees - financial arrangements - that's the cold reality.

  8. #38

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    Quote Originally Posted by ray98:
    I mean if the DH left, would the employer be a few thousand better off by renting to an unconnected third party?
    No, but in principle the room that is her home would be available to you for other purposes (or you could rent a smaller place).

    Unless of course you are one of those people who don't actually give their helper a room and force them to sleep on the floor or windowsill, in which case you are utterly beneath contempt.

  9. #39

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    Quote Originally Posted by PDLM:
    No, but in principle the room that is her home would be available to you for other purposes (or you could rent a smaller place).

    Unless of course you are one of those people who don't actually give their helper a room and force them to sleep on the floor or windowsill, in which case you are utterly beneath contempt.
    Forget the contempt bit, like I said, I don't like strangers in my home or place of temporary residence.

    What principle? The maid's room is a place for her to use whilst she is still in employment with you, nothing more. If she wants to call it home, that's up to her, but it's not her home in that she has paid anything (rent or purchase price) for it, it's not hers as she can stay as long as she wants as long as she pays rent, she certainly can't purchase it in her own name unless she buys the whole flat off the owner.

  10. #40

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    But it many cases it's all that she has...

    (And I'm sorry you have trouble understanding English phrases like "in principle" (and, in a previous post, "in the case of"), but I can't be bothered to give you English lessons at the moment)