Rebeca Duran

Rebeca Duran

Staff Writer
The Brazil Business

Updated

Employing a Caseiro

Rebeca Duran

Rebeca Duran

Staff Writer
The Brazil Business

Updated

You have a country house but you live in the city and only visit this place on holidays or vacations. So who takes care of your property while you are away? In Brazil this person is the caseiro. In this article you will find out what a caseiro is and how you can employ one.

What is a Caseiro?

It is very common to have beach houses or country houses in order to escape the madness of the city on holidays, weekends and vacations and in Brazil this is no different. A Lot of people have other properties on the coast, in the countryside and rural areas, but since they do not live there, who takes care of the property?

This properties have pools that must be cleaned and have houses that must be protected and that is where the caseiro enters in the story. In Brazil, caseiro is someone responsible to take care of a property while the actual owner is absent.

In farms, beach houses, ranches and country houses – referred to as chácaras in Brazil – this type of worker is useful and requested. Besides taking care of the owner’s property, they also perform conservation services and maintenance of the place. Such as: cleaning the house and the yard.

Caseiros are not simply domestic workers – even that the law recognizes most of them as such – this workers lives on the property of their employer, not inside the house, but in another house constructed at the place specially for the caseiro and his family.

Caseiro: Domestic Worker X Rural Worker

Caseiros are considered by the Brazilian legislation as domestic workers and so, they have the same rights of this type of workers, although they can be considered rural workers in some cases. If the caseiro works in small rural properties where he performs labor activities linked to production, his work cannot be characterizedas domestic, but he is considered a rural worker.

If that happens not only the rights of domestic workers must be designated to caseiro, he must also be submitted to the rights of a rural worker:

Rights of Domestic Workers

The rights of a caseiro are usually the same of domestic workers:

  • minimum salary
  • the employer cannot reduce the salary of an employee
  • 13th salary
  • remunerated weekly rest
  • vacations
  • maternity license
  • paternity license
  • aviso prévio: When dismissing an employee, is mandatory to notify him one month in advance or pay him the amount equivalent to a month salary
  • retirement

Rights of Rural Workers

It is interesting for the caseiro to be characterized as a rural worker because this type of worker, besides having the same rights of domestic workers, has also a few more as the following:

  • compensation against dismissing without fair reason
  • unemployment insurance
  • adicional noturno: additional value due to servers by the provision of service between the time of 22 hours pm and 5 hours am, in the percentage of 25% over the value of the normal hour.
  • Family salary: benefit paid up to 971.78 BRL for workers that have children under 14 years of age
  • Remuneration for extraordinary service

Hiring Procedures

To hire a caseiro a few legal procedures must be followed, but the most important is to find someone you can trust to take care of your property and someone very helpful. The process of hiring a caseiro requires a few documents, the caseiro must present:

The employer by hiring a caseiro – just as in any type of hiring process – the caseiro’s CTPS must be filed with the proper information. The employer must also return the CTPS, signed, to the caseiro in a period of 48 hours after the hiring. In the CTPS the employer must present:

  • name of the employer
  • CNPJ and CPF of the employer
  • date of hiring
  • function of the caseiro
  • salary
  • vacation
  • special conditions, if there is any

Employment Agreement of Caseiro

Since most caseiros are recognized as domestic workers, the model of work agreement that must be developed in the hiring of a caseiro must be based on the one developed in the hiring of a domestic worker as it follows:

First Part:

  • Employer's Name
  • Employer's Nationality
  • Employer's Civil State
  • Employer's Profession
  • Employer's Address
  • Number of Employer's CIC
  • Number of Employer's Identifaction
  • Caseiro's Name
  • Caseiro's Nationality
  • Caseiro's Civil State
  • Caseiro's Profession
  • Caseiror's Address
  • Number of Caseiro's CIC
  • Number of Caseiro's Identity Card

Second Part:

  • Function that will be held by the caseiro
  • Place where the caseiro will work
  • Monthly remuneration provided by the employer to the caseiro (salary)
  • Transportation that will be paid by the employer to the caseiro, if necessary

Third Part:

  • Inform the period contract as undetermined, although, the first 30 to 60 days of work can be considered as an experiential period. After the experience period is over the undetermined period of the contract is validated.
  • Inform that if the caseiro causes any type of damage to the employer’s property, the costs to fix the damages will be debited from his salary.
  • Inform that the caseiro will have his weekly right to rest remunerated and also will have the right to not work on holidays.
  • The employer must inform the collection of the FGTS and INSS of the worker.

After the agreement is done, the caseiro and the employer must signed the agreement which is two copies in the presence of two witnesses and inform the date in which the work agreement was signed and the name of the witnesses.