Working from Home, Homeopathic Practitioner

jatt

Hi,

I recently qualified as a Homeopathic Practitioner and would like to start working from home as a self employed professional. My landlord mentioned something about problems setting up practice from home as he said that i cant do any business from home because of some heavy charges from council or some other body applicable to business addresses.

I cant start working straightaway from rented offices until i have a resonable client base. Can somebody please advice me about these so called charges and will my address be considered as a business address if i start my practice from home.


Thanks in advance.

Jatt

TrikerAndBiker

Fraid I cant help with the 'charges' but have you not thought about offering to travel to your clients own homes rather than them coming to you? Or maybe approaching a local hairdressers to see if they would be interested in letting you have a room at the back as you'll have a good source of customers.

Only thing I would say (and you've probably already thought about this) is in this 'no win no fee' culture make sure you have insurance particularly if you are going to be using oils or doing any form of manipulation.
Good luck with your new venture
Ladybiker

Savvy_Sue

Your landlord can quite reasonably have a condition in your tenancy agreement against running a business from the premises, and he may have a condition in his mortgage.

Or he may be referring to business rates, which are NOT cheap and are levied on non-domestic premises. You could phone your local council and ask about this: I don't think they are always levied if you work from home.

The other thing he could be referring to is that you can claim tax relief if you work from home, only if you use any part exclusively for work then you can get stung for Capital Gains Tax when you sell the house. I don't know how this works when you don't own the house, or if the tax relief was being claimed by someone working there who didn't own it, IYSWIM.

However, bottom line is that if your landlord doesn't want you working from home, doing so would be a Dumb Move unless you want to move soon after startup. You might be able to argue that he's being unreasonable, but I wouldn't bank on it.

I'd agree with TandB about working somewhere where your services might fit in with what's already on offer there. Health Food shops sometimes have consultation rooms, or round here (in Bristol) there are lots of little 'hubs' of alternative therapists.

All of which have the advantage of NOT having the world and his wife knowing where you live, should they develop a grievance against you, NOT upsetting the neighbours if they take against you having a string of visitors to your door, and NOT upsetting your landlord ...

Becles

Is it ok to be home based, but visit your clients in their own homes etc?

I work from home and the council are happy as it's just me sitting in a room of my house, and I go out and visit customer sites. They said it would have been a different story if I had lots of people coming to the house, and/or lots of vehicles coming and going.

I haven't got the capital gains tax issue, as my office on one wall of the utility room, and I share the room with the washing machine and tumble dryer, so it's not exclusive business use!

Savvy_Sue

Becles wrote: »

Is it ok to be home based, but visit your clients in their own homes etc?

I work from home and the council are happy as it's just me sitting in a room of my house, and I go out and visit customer sites. They said it would have been a different story if I had lots of people coming to the house, and/or lots of vehicles coming and going.

I haven't got the capital gains tax issue, as my office on one wall of the utility room, and I share the room with the washing machine and tumble dryer, so it's not exclusive business use!

I think that is absolutely fine - you're right in thinking that the issues start when customers / vehicles are coming to the house.

And making sure that no one room is exclusively used for the business avoids the CGT: if you don't have a useful utility room like Becles, then putting a bedsettee in the office and calling it the spare room achieves the same result, or a comfy chair and a radio for relaxing and listening to The Archers ...

jatt

Hi Everybody,

Thanks for your replies.

My landlord as himself doesnot have a problem but is worried about any charges against him or property.

I will be using my living room for consultation mostly on saturdays with max 2-3 clients coming to see me per week initially. There wont be any display board or any slightest changes to property but i will be using leaflets and visiting cards (not displayed anywhere on the property) for advertising my practice. I will be moving out of property in 3 months time.

There are no tax claim issues as well.

Regards

Jatt

Savvy_Sue

jatt wrote: »

There wont be any display board or any slightest changes to property but i will be using leaflets and visiting cards (not displayed anywhere on the property) for advertising my practice. I will be moving out of property in 3 months time.

If i were a landlord, that's something that would worry me - leaflets and cards can stick around for a LONG while - I often pick these things up and don't act on them for months - so unless you don't put the address on and only give a mobile phone no. then it is possible that the next tenants could continue to get calls and / or visits to the house for quite a while afterwards. Certainly if I had an address but the phone no. wasn't working and I badly wanted this service I would think about calling round to see if the person was still there.

Of course if you only give a mobile no. and give your address out verbally then that's not an issue, but you may not look as professional.

Becles

There's some directive now where you have to put your business address on all correspondance. I know it covers electronic documents like emails and webpages, but I can't remember if it covers leaflets or not.

I can't remember the official name of the directive either. Not very well at the moment and brain has turned into mush! Hopefully someone else will know what I'm talking about!

Cute_'n'_Quirky

Becles wrote: »

Is it ok to be home based, but visit your clients in their own homes etc?

I work from home and the council are happy as it's just me sitting in a room of my house, and I go out and visit customer sites. They said it would have been a different story if I had lots of people coming to the house, and/or lots of vehicles coming and going.

I haven't got the capital gains tax issue, as my office on one wall of the utility room, and I share the room with the washing machine and tumble dryer, so it's not exclusive business use!

I worked from home but did home visits for just over 23 years - it is perfectly fine to do this. You can claim capital allowance on your car, plus all your car expenses with a % deducted for personal use.

In my own home town we are not allowed to run any business from home, so that was out of the question. In 1983 the only premises I could rent were £350 per week, which was out of the question, so I did home visits.

Do make sure you have Public Liability and Indemnity Insurance, though, that is a must.

Re the phone issue - you could get an 0800 number directed to your home line for a small upfront payment fee, plus the calls.

I have never had my home address on ANYTHING at all.