Issues with being paid for using our house as film set

RedMonty

The disability charity my partner works at want to make a short film as part of their work - this is a fully funded lockdown project, using professional disabled actors and disabled professional crew etc, all of whom will be fully paid.  The film set budget is £1000, which they were expecting to pay for the right set. They couldn't find the right set, so we have offered them the use of our house for the 3 or 4 day shoot.  They said our house is perfect, so no problems there, and the £1000 will come in useful for our young kids. 

Now they've said there are ethical issues over paying us to rent our house.  This is because my partner works there at management level on a full time salary (and part of her duties is on the film project).  I kind of see their point.  At the same time I'm a bit miffed, because it will be a great deal of inconvenience for us and our kids. It's our family home & we may have to move out for the duration of the shoot. 

What do you think?  

Sandtree

As a charity they are held to a higher standard of ethics than the average company as its not really their money. So they would need to be able to demonstrate why it was an appropriate venue and that it was an appropriate fee. This may be hard to get past the auditors so may not be worth trying.

How did you arrive at the £1,000 for 3-4 days? Whilst a commercial venue may charge a charity something like this that amount has to cover insurances, advertising and all the other operational costs of running a business that your private home doesnt have (and indeed it is likely to have been an issue for your home insurance)

RedMonty

Two proposals rattling around: 
- Pay our two kids a token amount (hundred quid each). I think this is a bit rubbish. 
- My partner pays direct to me £1000 from her money. I don't want this. Her salary is her own, she works hard for that money.  Her salary and job description doesn't cover having her home used for a film set.  

If a company wanted to use one of their employees' family home for a fully budgeted commercial project, it's only fair the company pays commercial rates. The difference here is this is a charity using a grant for a specific project. If part of the grant intended to go to an external supplier goes instead to someone (me) connected with an internal staffer, then that raises a bit of a red flag. 

I'm a bit stuck here, though I agree it needs to be dealt with properly and ethically. 

RedMonty

Sandtree said:

 So they would need to be able to demonstrate why it was an appropriate venue and that it was an appropriate fee. This may be hard to get past the auditors so may not be worth trying.

I expect the script specifies the shoot takes place in a family home.  (I haven't seen it, but it was one of the winners of a public competition run by the charity.)  It seems there are commercial set companies that have a portfolio of people offering their homes for filming, and presumably what was on offer was too expensive or not available on the required dates.  So that's the reason for the venue and the fee. 

How did you arrive at the £1,000 for 3-4 days? Whilst a commercial venue may charge a charity something like this that amount has to cover insurances, advertising and all the other operational costs of running a business that your private home doesnt have (and indeed it is likely to have been an issue for your home insurance)

Producer (not my partner) rang up the commercial set companies, and found £1000 wasn't enough for them. It's fine by me!  [Edit - this article from 2014 gives a £500 daily fee for 'modest' homes."]

Good point about our home insurance.  You've reminded me that since lockdown we've both been working from home.  I'll contact my home insurers and clear that up with them. I'm sure they'll say it's a common situation. 
As for breakages etc, the charity is fully insured and have already said they will cover all accidents / breakages from their own insurance.  

Lomast

Getting any payment to the family of a charity employee is going to be almost impossible to get past their governance audit procedure.
What the probably could do is pay for a hotel for you during filming plus any other provable expenses such as extra costs of eating out

Lomast

Getting any payment to the family of a charity employee is going to be almost impossible to get past their governance audit procedure.
What the probably could do is pay for a hotel for you during filming plus any other provable expenses such as extra costs of eating out

Sandtree

RedMonty said:
Good point about our home insurance.  You've reminded me that since lockdown we've both been working from home.  I'll contact my home insurers and clear that up with them. I'm sure they'll say it's a common situation. 

As for breakages etc, the charity is fully insured and have already said they will cover all accidents / breakages from their own insurance.  

Working from home isnt going to be a problem for most insurers assuming you are doing "office work"

Having professional actors working in your home almost certainly will be an issue for them. Your home insurance covers third party liability and so if one of them trips and falls whilst in your home its possible your insurance would have to respond. Whilst clearly you could be good friends with George Clooney and therefore they're exposed to a similar hazard each time he pops over for coffee insurers take a very different stance when people are paying to use your premises for commercial purposes - for one it normally heightens the duty of care you owe them.

penners324

Send the charity an invoice for use of your home as a film set. Request they pay that invoice. Don't see the issue.

Sandtree

penners324 said:

Send the charity an invoice for use of your home as a film set. Request they pay that invoice. Don't see the issue.

How can they send an invoice when the house hasn't been used yet?

Have much experience working with charities?

Mickey666

Sounds easy enough to me - avoid like the plague!
They are (presumably) a professional outfit so let them find their own film set the way other professionals would.  As others have mentioned there will all manner of insurance issues with having a film crew parading through our house and perhaps £1000 wouldn't even cover it - have you checked?  Or will the charity be paying any additional premiums?

Your partner might work for the charity but they're under no obligation to provide them with a film set.  Why can't any of the other employees offer their houses instead?

I can't think of many things worse than having a film crew rampaging around my house.  Sorry.

elsien

So it’s ended up with wanting you to move out of your house for several days with very little to gain at your end because they can’t afford the going rate to do it properly elsewhere?

Can’t see that that’s particularly ethical either (charity worker here as well, btw.) 
Just because they’re a charity doesn’t mean they get to take the proverbial.