No point to this post...

[Rachael]

Over the year I make changes to my contract (not giving anyone a new contract unless they are new families). I do not inform any of my current families of any of the changes I am making over the year. They will find out in December when they get the full contract.

I think this is where the communication is failing on my part.

Do you mean over the year, you identify changes you would like to implement at a future day but you don't actually change the existing contracts or introduce the changes until a set date (December) when the new contract is issued to be read and signed?

If so, that's a whole different situation to changing the contracts throughout the year.

I think you are just identifying changes and updating your own master version of the document not changing the contract as in the legal agreement between two parties?

[flowerchild]

I think this is where the communication is failing on my part.

Do you mean over the year, you identify changes you would like to implement at a future day but you don't actually change the existing contracts or introduce the changes until a set date (December) when the new contract is issued to be read and signed?

If so, that's a whole different situation to changing the contracts throughout the year.

I think you are just identifying changes and updating your own master version of the document not changing the contract as in the legal agreement between two parties?

Yes, that's what I'm doing. Noting changes on the master copy throughout the year and then issuing the new contract at the start of the year.

This is not as bad as it originally seemed then?

[Rachael]

It's fine.

I took your wording literally and thought that you changed your client agreement as and when you wanted and then sent out a new contract confirming them all afterwards.

I don't know how to word it so you understand what I thought you were doing. When you said you were changing the contracts throughout the year, I thought you meant you were literally changing the contracts, adding new conditions and enforcing them and only sending a new contract for signing at the end of the year following a load of changes you introduced through the year.

I now understand that although you said you changed the contracts throughout the year, you really meant you thought about what changes you wanted to introduce, documented them and made several changes policy by issuing new contracts which detailed the changes you'd been thinking about adding.