Hiring a domestic worker in South Africa is one of the most informal-feeling employment relationships people enter into, and one of the most regulated. The two facts don't sit easily together. Most households we talk to in Cape Town — from a flat in Sea Point to a family home in Constantia — have either no written agreement at all, or a one-page thing the worker brought from her last job. Both are a problem. This is the 2026 plain-English version of what the law actually requires, what your dome...