In Europe’s aging societies, legal regulations of undocumented care for the elderly in private households become more relevant. But how does the law turn into action? The article approaches this question on a theoretical and empirical level. By drawing on concepts of cultural theory, the implementation of regulatory law is conceptualised as convergence of the subjects’ dispositions with legal structures. Based on an analysis of interviews with persons affected by a regulation of care in Austria, the article illustrates that regulative law is not only implemented through legal contents, but also by means of general references to law. This allows for an analysis of how legal regulations of care for the elderly may come into effect, even though their regulatory claims are unusually liberal.