Even if gardening is an activity full of benefits (relaxation, stress reduction, improvement of endurance capacities, etc.), when you get older, maintaining your garden or vegetable patch is not always possible due to problems of health or because the desire is lacking. You then have the possibility of calling on a personal service at home who will come to carry out your small routine gardening work, or also on networks of volunteers.
To continue to take care of and maintain your garden when your physical abilities no longer allow it with age, or if you no longer want to, you can call on a home help service and, in occurrence, to a maintenance worker for minor works and gardens.
This service to the person differs from companies or craftsmen specialized in the maintenance of gardens and green spaces because a maintenance agent of small works and gardens is essentially in charge of the routine maintenance work that he is responsible for. act as gardens or vegetable patches.
As a result, this person who can help you to keep your exteriors clean and pleasant cannot offer to sell you plants or gardening equipment, to design and create a landscaped green space in your home, to prune your trees or to carry out earthworks in your garden.
This person, who comes to your home to do small gardening work at intervals that you set together, can, on the other hand, lend you a hand in picking your fruits and vegetables for personal consumption, to cut your hedges, your trees and clear your garden.
A maintenance agent for small works and gardens is also responsible for getting rid of the waste caused by his intervention in your home. He usually comes with his own gardening tools or, if he uses yours, he is responsible for their maintenance.
By using this type of personal service, you must of course pay (count between 15 and 30 euros per hour) and declare the person who takes care of the maintenance of your garden for you. A very simple procedure to carry out thanks to the Universal service employment check (Cesu), a simplified, practical and secure declaration set up by Urssaf.
On the other hand, by getting help from a maintenance agent for small works and gardens, you can benefit from advantages. First of all, you are entitled to an income tax credit (sum deducted from your tax) which represents 50% of the expenses you incur, up to a limit of 5,000 euros per year.
Then, like all private employers, you benefit from exemptions from employer social security contributions (a reduction of 2 euros per hour worked on the employer contribution to health, maternity, disability and death insurance). In addition, if you are over 70, or if you are disabled or dependent, this exemption is increased (and capped within the limit of 65 hourly minimum wage per month).
If you want to be assisted or replaced to maintain your garden because you no longer have the strength or the desire to do so, but you do not wish to recruit someone to help you yourself, you have the possibility of calling on companies or organizations (often associations) providing personal services that put you in touch with someone who meets your needs.
We then speak of service providers. That is to say that you do not yourself employ a person who carries out the maintenance of your garden but you pay a service provider for this connection. The maintenance worker for small works and gardens is in fact employed by these organizations.
Concretely, the maintenance of your garden is carried out exactly the same way as if you directly employ a person to do it. She does the same kinds of small gardening jobs. Only the gardening tools must be provided by the company or the provider association.
By using service providers to help you with your gardening work, you also benefit from a tax credit (equal to 50% of your expenses up to a limit of 5,000 euros per year). To benefit from it, your service provider must provide you with an annual tax certificate before March 31 of each year. The exemptions from employer contributions mentioned above are also applied.
If you can no longer take care of maintaining your garden, you also have the possibility of using a solidarity solution. It is a question of finding associations of volunteers (there are almost everywhere in France today) who come to carry out small gardening work at your home without being paid.
On the other hand, in return for their participation so that your garden remains impeccable, you must give them according to your choice and the needs of the people who intervene, either some vegetables from your vegetable garden, flowers, fruits, etc.
A good solution to guarantee that your exteriors remain impeccable without you having to get tired and for volunteers, often people with modest incomes, who do not leave empty-handed!
