Leasehold - Working from home

silvercar

diystarter7 said:

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

I'd be more concerned about the insulation properties of the apartment, if they can hear someone banging away on their computer!

diystarter7

LondonMoneySaver said:

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

Hi OP
Thanks for the clarification
The 'distinction' you refer to - do you have an office desk and or allowed to work in the office? Have you ever worked in their offices in this capacity?

The 'distinction' I guess may vary from management to management as you said, its not clear. Therefore, an anonymous call to the management of the building that takes care of buildings insurance/repairs/service costs etc to clarify is the best way forward imo.  It is complexed and IMO if the manamnet agents are a big team like everything experience in life at times, you may get varing answers so if you call, take their name. If I was in your position and clearly you are a very honest guy, I'd try and find out intially without disclosing my details as at times jobsworth can leach on to people


Btw - what does your employer classify you as and or what do you declare on your self-assessment form re your working status may help, possibly


Your choice and I hope it works out for you and please do feedback if you have time.

Thanks

diystarter7

silvercar said:

diystarter7 said:

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

I'd be more concerned about the insulation properties of the apartment, if they can hear someone banging away on their computer!

True and sadly, newer place may meet regs but they are not built like good, old council flats or the swanky ones along the Edgware Roads form the 1930's or earlier I think.

It is the echo/vibration and also depends on type of floor covering, the place you rest your keyboard and how haard you hit it

diystarter7

A bit more info may help you decide OP


When I posted the recent link from the Guardian, you declared it was the news you had read that prompted you to initiated this thread

A bit more info form 2018 when WFH was not rife.

Please read my latest posts re your employment status etc with your employer/tax etc etc as well

https://www.mirror.co.uk/money/working-home-could-you-evicted-12889873


Good luck

ps - OP sorry if I have missed this bit, do you have a mortgage? thanks

LondonMoneySaver

Thanks DIYstarter - yes i also read that mirror article before initially posting (i read almost all google results for "leasehold" "tenancy" "remote work" "work from home"). It claimed that people have been "almost caught out" but doesn't give any examples of where a landlord, freeholder or insurer has genuinely had an issue or even tried to "catch" someone, sounded more like a scare article.

To clarify the other questions:

Mortgage - yes

Office working - yes we both have offices which we could work from

Employment contract - our employers' company offices are listed as our place of employment (we're not listed as home workers in our employment contracts) but our employers simply offer us flexibility to work remotely. We don't complete self assessments as we're full time employed by a company, not self-employed or by our own business.

diystarter7

Hi
Thanks


You are looking to buy, a leasehold, You have clarified you are an employee. You have stated you have and will have a mortgage
You are wanting clarification re your possible status on a leasehold apartment if you continue to WFH

If I was you, Id defo:

Tell the mortgage outfit.

Tell the buildings insurance (I took ealy retirment at 50 and was staggred when the ins outfit a well-known one  at the call centre staff advised me as I and my OH were staying at home, there was more of risk things going wrong, EG bath, basin overflowing, chips oil catching fire etc. Up until then I'd assume it would be cheaper as having me home more often and like a dog keeping
crims away, lol..

The leasehold you like, may buy, check the T&C's and contact the management agents see what they say and if you like what they say, go for it if you wish.
============

I am a very lawful man as is my family and fear brekaing the rules/law etc. The last thing I'd want is,  something happens to out home and the ins say, "sorry sir, yuo did not decalr x/y and therefore your buildings ins in invalidated --  or we will knock x amount off the payout..."


IMO, nothing will happen if you dont tell them etc, but when things go wrong, they go wrong big style, People will report people for various reasons. Therefore best to be fully aware and then may an informed decision

good luck

diystarter7

herebeme said:

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! 

True to a large extent but I've already given exmaples where they are hot and for that reason some people buy

Thanks

elsien

I'm just going to go back to the fact that as an employee you are not running a business from home.

For me everything else follows on from that. The guardian article quotes people wanting to use their home to run an air b'n'b, or businesses which have clients coming to the property, or storing construction supplies. 
There is no evidence of any cases where this has been actioned. And the article says
" I think that if you’ve got somebody sitting at a laptop at their kitchen table, doing what they would normally be doing in their office, the chances of the landlord clamping down on that are probably quite slim,” he says.

“Once you get into the situation where people are doing something which is public-facing, with the result that customers start turning up at the property or the amount of traffic in the street increases, the business activity starts to become more visible, more intrusive. I think that is potentially a risk [for legal action].”

It's all very much ifs buts and maybes because it's not been tested out in court. 

There is a difference between telling the contents insurance (which I don't think anyone has suggested not doing, btw) and the leasehold situation. Worst case scenario, in the extremely unlikely event that something does come from it, you find somewhere else to work. I think you'll find there are unlikely to be any leases that specifically refer to working from home. Up to you whether you decide to ask the management company the question, or just get on with it, presuming that a non-leasehold property isn't an option. 

user1977

diystarter7 said:

If I was you, Id defo:

Tell the mortgage outfit.

Tell the buildings insurance (I took ealy retirment at 50 and was staggred when the ins outfit a well-known one  at the call centre staff advised me as I and my OH were staying at home, there was more of risk things going wrong, EG bath, basin overflowing, chips oil catching fire etc. Up until then I'd assume it would be cheaper as having me home more often and like a dog keeping
crims away, lol..

The leasehold you like, may buy, check the T&C's and contact the management agents see what they say and if you like what they say, go for it if you wish.

What is most likely to happen is that you'll have multiple lengthy conversations with confused people in call centres who don't know what they're meant to say to you (because it's not on any of their scripts). As we've seen from various examples here in the past, that often results in overly-cautious (and simply wrong) responses.

Also bear in mind the buildings insurance will be the freeholders', not the OP's - so it's unlikely the OP will have any direct contact with the insurers.

And neither managing agents nor their insurers are likely to chat to someone who isn't even a leaseholder yet.

These all seem like unnecessary discussions to have and just likely to start hares running.

diystarter7

user1977 said:

diystarter7 said:

If I was you, Id defo:

Tell the mortgage outfit.

Tell the buildings insurance (I took ealy retirment at 50 and was staggred when the ins outfit a well-known one  at the call centre staff advised me as I and my OH were staying at home, there was more of risk things going wrong, EG bath, basin overflowing, chips oil catching fire etc. Up until then I'd assume it would be cheaper as having me home more often and like a dog keeping
crims away, lol..

The leasehold you like, may buy, check the T&C's and contact the management agents see what they say and if you like what they say, go for it if you wish.

What is most likely to happen is that you'll have multiple lengthy conversations with confused people in call centres who don't know what they're meant to say to you (because it's not on any of their scripts). As we've seen from various examples here in the past, that often results in overly-cautious (and simply wrong) responses.

Also bear in mind the buildings insurance will be the freeholders', not the OP's - so it's unlikely the OP will have any direct contact with the insurers.

And neither managing agents nor their insurers are likely to chat to someone who isn't even a leaseholder yet.

These all seem like unnecessary discussions to have and just likely to start hares running.

Re buildings insurance for leasehold apartments from what I can recall when we had our rental apartment and one of our kids rents out one - you have to tell management if you are working from home, etc.

Read my posts on this thread that state management agents vary and the apartment we rented out and one our kid does were bought on the basis they were good management teams that allowed no messing, breach of T&C's. Therefore, what I posted is spot on if you want to do the right thing,

You are trying to confuse what I have stated very clearly re management temas - of course I know OP has not"bought" the apartment hence my comments in this thread - "before buying, check T&C's and speak with the management team..."


The are "all unnecessary discussions," which is awfully poor advice just like another poster bad advice.

I've given you good examples where good management teams of small and large blocks of flats enforce the rules to the letter. Do you really want the OP to by on guesswork/luck they wont get pulled  and then possibly become seriously unstuck - I doubt it



OP, you are a good person and one that cares/thinks about the rules etc and don't want to come unstuck after buying an apartment then finding out they won't let you work from home, run a certain business etc etc. As I said previously, any apartment you are thinking of buying, consult the management and get it in writing etc and check the lease. Some won't allow you to rent a room, some won't allow you to run a simple business from home that involves no callers, selling buying stuff etc etc - so do your research, check lease papers T&C's, management company and ask your solicitor as well when considering buying

A good management is kept to a good block of apartments small or large ones/small or large development. We have friends living in a mansion apartment on the Edgware Rd London and the management teams there are as good as the apartment one of our kids rent out. Good manamgment keeps communal areas clear and tidy as they are supposed to be and not for peoples bikes, prams, washing, you name it - you will not all commareas clean and nice and front and back garden well kept and rubbish controlled as well as car parks.