Leasehold - Working from home

LondonMoneySaver

Hi everyone,

I've looked all over for answers with conflicting conclusions and would appreciate some guidance.

I am looking to buy a leasehold flat, and understand most leases prohibit a residential dwelling for business / trade. I'm concerned that my partner and I both working from home might breach the lease.

We're software developers for different companies. Now I can understand buying/selling things from home, having clients coming in and out all day to do their hair and nails, or running a music studio in their spare room might cause a nuisance to neighbours and be considered running a business. But we're literally just sat at a laptop typing and occasionally talking - no visitors, no loud equipment, no different to what i'm doing right now writing this post.

I've found mixed search results relating to leasehold, freehold, and rental ASTs. Some articles suggest people have been "almost caught out" (which frankly sounded like scaremongering), whereas others suggest this "should be fine". Some articles i read were lenient in the context of the pandemic which would no longer apply.

Can anyone provide any concrete examples (e.g. court rulings, lease forfeiture, insurance invalidation) for someone using a residential property as a working from home space to the extent we would be?

Many thanks :-)

user1977

The short answer is no, because why would anybody seek to enforce in your sort of circumstances? You really don’t have anything to worry about.

In any event, this isn’t a specific leasehold thing - a huge proportion of freehold properties have some sort of restrictions on use. Where do you currently live?

diystarter7

Hi OP
I'd treat the above comments with a great deal caution

We were going to buy for rental years ago and one was in a gated community, very plush one and the lease terms were no sub letting and running a business from home

Re 'business' if someone is welding, sewing etc etc they'd easily be caught out and reported by others but your type of work is like WFH but you may have issues with insurance as its a lease and you will be running a business in effect.  

Other than the above it all depends who good, well enforce the management agents are and an apartment on of our kids rents, you can't rent to someone unemployed and you payment management for the tenant's certs and renewals and new T's etc.


A cleint of mine a few years back when I worked complained about the upstaris apartment "banging away at the computer all day long," and I too could hear it

It all depends where your apartment is, the T&C's and how well the management enforces the rules

Please do your own research and be aware EG you move and think its ok and do so for months but then someone reports you and the management company get on your back, what then?


A good article below for a decent news source

https://www.theguardian.com/money/2022/oct/08/leaseholders-working-from-home-legal-action-landlords-lease#:~:text=Leaseholders who work from home warned they could face legal action,-This article is&text=Some people who work from,according to a legal academic.


Thanks

LondonMoneySaver

Thanks both for your comments - and yes that Guardian article was one which I read and gave me the concerns, but sounded more like supposition than an example where there had been a genuine issue.

Overall i think given the prevalence of home working it's unlikely to lead to issues but ideally i was looking for some kind of reassurance or legal precendent of such working from home not being considered "business or trade" but falling within residential use.

Otherwise by extension it presumably means someone can't answer a work call or work e-mail at home, bring home their paperwork or grade their students' homework either.

bouicca21

In my block of 6, there are 2 where the occupants work mostly from home, as I did before I retired, and still do on a part time voluntary basis.  No one has objected and tbh how would they prove it?  We all have offices we could go to, even if only to perch on a corner of a shared desk.

propertyrental

'running a business from home'/
'working from home'
Big difference.
Also big difference between just working on a computer and having clients/customers and/or delivery drivers coming and going.

LondonMoneySaver

Thanks all, I agree there is a big difference and I'm probably overthinking the issue / risk. I imagine also that the reason I can't find much concrete assurance on this might also be because no landlord or freeholder would have gone to the trouble of testing this in the courts and setting a precedent....

diystarter7

bouicca21 said:

In my block of 6, there are 2 where the occupants work mostly from home, as I did before I retired, and still do on a part time voluntary basis.  No one has objected and tbh how would they prove it?  We all have offices we could go to, even if only to perch on a corner of a shared desk.

Hi

In Op's case it more f a case of working from home. You get different insurance rates etc. As importantly, what would happen if the management was on the ball like one of the apartments one of our kids rent out - you'd be stuck

IMO, if you are running a computer based business from home like the one in OP's post, even then I'd fully check out the history of the management of that block and speak to others about how good or bad they are with enforcement.

OP, good luck and I hope you find what you are looking for.

Thanks

Slinky

I ran a business from our home, which involved me sitting working on the computer most of the time, a delivery once a month and about 6 people collecting things from me on delivery day. My home insurance rates weren't impacted at all as I didn't have clients visiting my home. I had business insurance to cover the business aspect of my limited company.  I'd clarify with your employer that there is no liability accepted for loss of their computer from your home should the worst happen.

OP I really think you don't have anything to worry about here.  Who knows if you are sitting at home working on your computer, or sitting at home surfing MSE or Ancestry or the BBC. And who would care.

LondonMoneySaver

Thanks diystarter

Just to clarify - we work for employers as software developers either in our employers' offices or at home.

So instead of sitting in our employers' offices typing away on our keyboard we're doing it in our kitchen. We're not running a business from our property in the sense that they aren't our own businesses or self employed.

For me this feels like the key distinction between business use/trade vs doing our office-based clerical type work at home but others may disagree and look forward to hearing everyone's opinions.

Cheers

herebeme

I have a leasehold flat, my recent contents insurance specifically said that office work from home / computer-based work at home was NOT counted as running a business from home. 

I also registered my limited company (office work) at my flat, no issues from a lease POV. Registering a business with Company House isn’t running a business it’s administrative. 

Just think about it. There are hundreds of thousands of people working from home from leasehold flats at the moment. You are worrying about nothing imo. 

I think you will find the issue with most leasehold flats is that the freeholder / management company pays too little attention to what is going on, not too much!